


A Shout Into the Void

by blackrabbit_ofInle, cjulina



Series: Claimed [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Sexual Situations, Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Come Marking, Cunnilingus, Dark Fantasy, Dom/sub, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Morality, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Erotic dreaming, Exhibitionism, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Female Gaze, Fictional Religion & Theology, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, M/M affection, M/M sensuality, Mage Rebellion, Mages vs. Templars, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation, Nipple Piercings, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Redemption, Sex Magic, Templar Hawke (Dragon Age), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism, Warrior Hawke (Dragon Age), Whipping, Woman on Top, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-05-14 04:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19265800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrabbit_ofInle/pseuds/blackrabbit_ofInle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjulina/pseuds/cjulina
Summary: ** Inspired by and based on the "Claimed-verse" by cjulina, who was gracious enough to let me play in her sandbox.**** PAY ATTENTION TO TAGS**Life is dangerous for Thedas mages - especially for apostates in Kirkwall. A few years before the mage rebellion began in earnest, the Chantry issued a new mandate for caught apostates. They were to be killed, made Tranquil...or Claimed. The new Rite of Claiming binds a mage to the Templar who takes them, and forces them to submit to the Templar's will, for good or for ill. The reasoning for this new Rite - as dubious and given to grave abuses as it is - is that it provides a middle ground between the finality of death, and the complete erasure of a mage's self through Tranquility.Templar Marion Hawke is opposed to the Claiming, but is forced by circumstances to reluctantly admit that it might be the only way to save Thedas' most defiant mage. This is the story of a reimagined Warrior!Hawke and her complicated relationship with a canon Anders, who she tries to rescue the only way she knows how. As Kirkwall slowly goes insane around them, they both wrestle with the ultimate question surrounding the choice to Claim him: can anything good ever come from evil?





	1. The Claiming: 1 - Hawke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjulina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjulina/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Claimed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263832) by [cjulina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjulina/pseuds/cjulina). 



> So, there I was, minding my own business, reading through Dragon Age smut...and I stumbled across "Claimed" by cjulina. What follows from here is (mostly) her fault, and due in great part to her inspiring writing and creative genius.
> 
> "A Shout Into the Void" is based on her AU concept of the Rite of Claiming. You don't have to read "Claimed" in order to know what's going on here, but I would recommend maybe giving "Claimed's" first chapter a quick read at some point, before delving too far into this one. CJ does a great job of setting up the premise that I build on here. She also has a short side story that explains the origins of the Claiming, which you can find here:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170833
> 
> My part in all this came while I was playing DA2 recently - I love "from-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers" type stories and I couldn't get the following out of my head as I played: "what if Hawke was a Templar? How would things change? What could stay the same?" I couldn't really figure out a way to make such a premise plausible, however, until I read Claimed.
> 
> This is an AU, but I do intend to follow the main story line of DA2. Obviously, there will be different twists and tweaks, given Hawke's identity in this 'verse...but just to keep you all on your toes, don't expect Anders to be anything other than ornery, Justice-possessed Anders. Therein lies the main conflict this entire venture is built around.
> 
> Pay attention to the tags, by the way. This deals quite heavily in dub con themes. In "Claimed", the Rite that is described is straight-up rape and unflinchingly portrayed as such. I present it here as more of a (heavily) dubious consent type of situation (as Anders points out several times, how are any of his 'options' truly a choice?). Both approaches are plausible, but depend heavily on the perspective and morality of the Templar, and the personality and circumstances of the mage. This story will delve into some dark places...you have been warned...

_“...I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever know, and I am in love with you.”_

****John Green,** **The Fault In Our Stars** **

 

* * *

 

The voices were what drew her back to consciousness. Knight-Corporal Marion Hawke grimaced as she gingerly opened her eyes and blinked blearily up at the dark ceiling above her. For a moment, she was confused - where was she? What had happened? Why was she waking up on a cold marble floor?

Voices...men's voices... Hawke cautiously rolled her head to look toward her right. Two figures stood in the dark recess of the Chantry -

The Chantry! She was in the Chantry! The Templar blinked once, twice, as the fog in her throbbing head started to lift, if only just a bit. Bits and pieces of memory flashed through her mind so quickly, that she had to squeeze her eyes shut, take as deep a breath as she could manage, and force herself to exhale slowly, softly.

She’d come with her squad. They were lead by one of Kirkwall’s best Templar hunters - Knight-Lieutenant Rowena Bronswell. They had set a trap for an apostate who had been corresponding with one of the Circle mages. Their “bait” had been made Tranquil just hours before being marched grimly out of the Gallows. Hawke hadn’t been present for the Rite, but her squad gossiped as they prepared for what they thought would be a fairly routine mission. She had been both surprised, and not surprised at all, to find out that the unfortunate Tranquil they were taking with them was Karl - a mage originally from the Ferelden Circle, who had been a thorn in Meredith’s side since the moment he had stepped into the Gallows. He’d been in Kirkwall for about two or three years, but more mages had gone missing from the Circle in that time, than in the five years prior to his arrival.

Meredith was a master at sniffing out insurrection and those within the Gallows knew what the penalty for defiance was: the brand of Tranquility. According to the squad’s gossip, Karl had given the Knight-Commander one hell of a fight, before _four_ Templars had finally managed to hold him still enough for Meredith to press the brand to his forehead. After that, well...

Karl had offered no resistance to her, or to anyone in her squad, when they all finally set out into the night.

The trap was sprung exactly as intended. The apostate came for his friend - and found far more than he had bargained for. But, when he realized that he and Karl weren’t alone, he had changed. For as long as she lived, Hawke knew she would remember that face that had turned toward them - sharp, angled features, a stubbled jaw, and blue-white eyes that blazed like a Templar's holy blade.

Those eyes were all she saw when she'd been knocked back against the wall so hard that darkness immediately corrupted her vision. He'd thrown all of them away from him, away from each other, with just one powerful blast of magic.

Her squad… What had happened to the others? Hawke already knew the answer, knew because the apostate was still standing, still speaking to Karl in distressed whispers. But...she had to see to believe.

The young Templar inched her way up, her core muscles tightening in the effort; they then trembled slightly as she held herself in an unsupported half-sit up, until she could get her elbows under her. She moved as stealthily as she could - a glance toward the two figures reassured her that she was being soundly ignored.

It didn't help that Karl stood directly in front of the other, who had his back turned to her. She considered the man's shoulder-length hair and short, stiff pony-tail that held the majority of it out of his face. That face…those _eyes_...

She shuddered and tore her gaze away from him. He wasn’t glowing any more, so the Maker be thanked for small favors. Hawke looked around her, her eyes darting frantically from body to body - her squad, tossed about the floor like so much trash.

Were they...

Were they all dead?

That's when she realized that the body closest to her was that of Knight-Lieutenant Bronswell. Blood pooled beneath the officer's helmeted head and spilled across the floor in the short space between them. Forgetting discretion, Hawke bolted upright as she realized that her right shoulder and arm were laying in Bronswell's blood.

Andraste was watching over her, however. Movement caught her eye the instant she sat up and she whipped her head over towards the two men. Hawke lifted her hand to Smite…

And watched in shock as the apostate shoved his blade into Karl’s heart. A mangled moan fell from his lips as he did so, as Karl whispered a "thank you" so faint that Hawke could only read the words from the movements of his lips. The life went swiftly from the older mage's eyes and his killer followed his body down to the floor. There was a high, breathy sob as trembling hands reached out to press Karl's eyes closed, to smooth back his hair in a gesture that clearly conveyed a deep caring for the mage.

Shoulders shook, but there was no sound, as Hawke's intended quarry leaned over and rested his bowed head on the center of Karl's breathless chest. Hawke pushed a sigh silently through her open mouth as she tilted her head and searched the Chantry's painted ceiling for direction on what she should do next.

Her options were quite limited - she had three, to be precise.

Execution.

Rite of Tranquility.

Rite of Claiming.

She needed to make up her mind quickly. She had heard the stirring of the Sisters on the other side of the building as soon as she'd come to - it was a matter of minutes before the Grand Cleric and the Chantry Mother came bustling over to discover the source of the brief and breathtakingly violent conflict.

There was an important matter to consider, however - the source of the rogue mage's incredible power. Most Templars wouldn't have known (or cared) to make a distinction in what had manifested itself through the blond-haired apostate. But, Hawke closely guarded the truth of her family and origin - she was the daughter and the sister of apostates.

As such, she cared to know a few things that most of her Templar brothers and sisters didn't. One such fact was of particular importance for the moment - that there were more than just demons in the Fade. There were spirits, too - some neutral to the plight of mortal beings, others righteously compelled to aid those in the material realm in what ways they could.

That was a not a maleficar mourning over Karl. It was a simple matter of elimination - he was not an abomination. All Templar knew what _that_ looked like. If he was not possessed by a demon (and he was most _certainly_ possessed), then it had to be a spirit of some particular virtue that had invested itself in the affairs of the mortal world.

As far as she knew, the relationship between a Fade spirit and a mortal was not forged through Blood Magic. Hawke was not hugely convinced by most of the Order's stances on mages, but she at least agreed with the position on maleficar...the wages of Blood Magic was death.

This man did not deserve death - though, she suspected he may very well desire it in the aftermath of his actions.

Tranquility...or Claiming, then.

_On second thought, maybe_ **I** _prefer the option of execution_ , she thought wryly to herself.

Given the remaining two choices, running her blade through his heart certainly seemed like the more merciful decision in the long run.

_Well...best get on with...whatever...  The Chantry biddies will be here any second._

Hawke successfully kept herself from groaning as she climbed to her feet. Her armor gave her away, though, as it clanked and creaked in response to her movements. For the thousandth time, she wondered why Templars couldn't wear leather armor.  It was much more practical, given the nature of their duties...

She never took her eyes off the mage as she struggled to her feet. A snarl erupted from him and he whirled on his knees to face her - blue flashed in his eyes and appeared in strange fissures across his body, glowing eerily through his clothes and the gloom of the Chantry alcove. Hawke instinctively threw her hand out to Smite him and there was barely any resistance to it. His mana was almost gone; the blue glow disappeared almost as swiftly had it had appeared.

Weary and wary brown eyes stared at her in a mixture of defiance and disbelief. But, as she limped resolutely around the bodies of her fallen brothers and toward him, the resistance in his eyes slowly, sadly, faded into defeat.

"Kill me," he said simply, almost tonelessly as she knelt clumsily beside him on one knee.

Hawke shook her head.

"That's something I try my best to avoid," she murmured.

In truth, she had never killed someone before. Darkspawn, yes. Demons, definitely. But, never a fellow human being, or other Maker-made mortal. She didn't much relish the idea of doing so now - even if he was _asking_ for death.

He hung his head as she gently grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands behind his back. His shoulders slumped and she watched him crumble beneath the touch of her armored hands.

"Please don't make me Tranquil."

"You know what the alternative is, then," she answered softly.

She could hear women's voices drawing close to the stairs behind them. They didn't have time for a conversation...but some sixth sense told Hawke to linger just a moment longer.

"And," she added gently as she drew him up with her as she got to her feet. "I actively try to avoid _that_ as well."

Another pause then an almost awkward admission -

"I try to avoid _all_ three options, truth be told."

He peered down at her (she noted, to her chagrin, that he was about half a foot taller than her), understandably perplexed by what she had said. Hawke shrugged and had to lift her voice just a hair to be heard over the soft clatter of her pauldrons.

"I'm an odd one, I know."

Potential witnesses to their conversation were now climbing the stairs. Hawke took a resolute step closer to the mage and pierced him with a clear blue gaze she only belatedly realized he wouldn’t see from beneath her Templar helmet.

"Do you really want to die?"

The struggle behind his gaze was clearly evident, but thankfully, he didn't linger in indecision. Though, his answer seemed...oddly reluctant, as if it wasn’t quite his own will being expressed.

"N....no."

"Then you need to make a choice," there was no room, no time, for anything but bluntness. "And you have until we arrive at the Gallows to tell me what it is."

The look he gave her was a hard one to describe. It was startled, thoughtful, searching, calculating. Hawke returned his gaze in equal measure. She could tell that he was shocked by her words...and she could also tell that he understood what she was implying.

If he didn’t want to die, and he didn't want to be Tranquil...then he had to take a chance with her.

The very thought of Claiming him was bitter to her, almost foul. Not to mention, for her such an action was fraught with...numerous _personal_ complications, one of which was particularly hard to overlook. Hawke forced herself not to dwell on what the Claiming might mean for her. It wasn’t _her_ life on the line. She’d spent her whole life making sacrifices to save lives. What was one more?

The apostate she had captured was not a Blood Mage, and Hawke was resolute in her belief that those apostates who had resisted both temptation and desperation deserved a chance to live, to redeem themselves - if only in the eyes of the Maker and his Bride. She would honor his choice, no matter how repugnant it might be to her.

Life over death, insomuch as it was possible. So she had been taught, so she believed.


	2. The Claiming: 2 - Anders

_“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”_

****Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.** ** 

**A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches**

* * *

 

"You could just let me go."

It was a long-shot, but Anders figured he'd give it a try. There were, supposedly, Templars who sympathized with the mages. _He_ had certainly never met any, but...maybe his luck could turn around after all.

He couldn't see the woman's eyes, hidden as they were beneath her helmet. But, she tilted her head in such a way that he knew she was looking up at him. For a moment, the mage expected one of two reactions: a derisive laugh, or a punch to the gut.

So, he was understandably surprised when she answered him, in a tone that was respectful, even kind.

"I could, perhaps."

Was that...the sound of regret behind her words? Anders shook his head and sighed. He was so overloaded on emotions and so exhausted from battle, that he was apparently willing to hear whatever he could to make himself feel better.

They walked in silence for a few more paces.

"But, you're not going to," Anders hated that silence; as much as he knew that trying to have a conversation with a Templar was an act in futility, he still tried.

He always tried, because if he didn't, he would be overwhelmed by his anger, his frustration, and his fear. His mana was too depleted for Justice to manifest, but that didn't stop the spirit within him from stirring in restless agitation. After all, every step brought Anders closest to his darkest nightmare.

"No," the Templar answered so softly that it was almost lost in the clank of her armor.

"You tell me to make a choice, but do you realize how absolutely _fucked up_ it is ask that?" mana or no mana, Anders was angry and he was tired of holding at least that much back.

He had nothing else to lose. He'd fled the Grey Wardens for Karl, to save his former lover from the Gallows, to be with him again. Karl had been a man of action - he hadn't needed to take a spirit of justice into his soul in order to find the courage to stand up against the Templars and the Chantry. Anders had always admired that about Karl - had always loved that about him.

And now...

Now the one person he had ever loved, was dead by his own hand.

No, there was nothing else left for him in this world. Still, he'd be damned if he was going to die a slow death in the Gallows as a Tranquil or a Claimed. If he goaded the Templar at his side to kill him...then that would be the one true mercy she could actually grant him.

Again, however, her answer brought him up short.

"I know. I know it isn’t right."

Anders nearly gave himself whiplash when he turned his head to look down at her. She wasn't shorter than him by much...but, it was just enough to make it awkward for them both.

"Then why ask me?" he snarled.

"You're not a Blood Mage and therefore have committed no crime - to mortals or Maker - to warrant death," she answered calmly. "And you told me you didn't want to die," she paused a moment before adding, "Did you mean that?"

It was a serious question and Anders grudgingly gave it the consideration it was due.

He wanted death. The alternatives were too horrific to even consider, much less _choose_.

But...there wasn't just himself to consider. He couldn't talk to Justice like he once had, but over the past year Anders had begun to figure out when a thought, word, or desire was his, and when it belonged to Justice.

If it was passionate, if it came from his emotions, if it served _him_ , then it was his own thought, word, or desire. But, if it was rational, calculating, and tactical, then it was Justice.

The Templar had now asked him twice if he truly wanted to die. As usual, he was of two minds - he would rather die than face the Chantry-made consequences of his apostasy. Justice, however, looked at the long-term...because, regardless of whether or not Anders liked it, they did indeed have two other options.  One of which had at least the _potential_ for furthering their cause... That, though, depended greatly on the Templar who would Claim him...and if asked his opinion, Anders didn't think his luck was good enough to gamble on.

"Let me ask it this way," the Templar abruptly stopped and Anders got jerked back a bit when he kept trying to go forward.

That at least got his attention.

"Why would you want to live?"

 _You're a strange Templar,_ Anders thought to himself as he allowed the woman to tug him gently by the elbow into the shadows of a nearby archway.

She asked a fair question, however. He licked his lips nervously as he tried to search for an answer that wouldn't incriminate Justice's desires.

He settled on simplicity.

"At least if I am alive, there’s hope."

"Hope for what?"

Anders was quiet for a long moment as he wrestled with the question. Questions, questions, questions. It wasn't normal for a Templar to ask questions. In Anders’ rather extensive experience, questions went completely against their nature.

"Don't ask a mage to name his hopes," the answer came unbidden and he surprised even himself by it. "They're all I'll ever have to call my own."

The following silence was a long one. So long, in fact, that Anders began to wonder if he was going to die, after all. He'd given her no answer at all and in doing so, defied her.

"A good answer."

Relief made his knees turn to jelly, which forced him to suppress a rueful sigh. If this was his reaction to an imminent threat of death, real or imagined...then no, he did not want to die.

"Well, since we've established death is not an option," the Templar's voice was low and Anders found himself leaning toward her in order to hear her, slightly muffled as she was by her helmet. "I would say that talk of hope removes the Rite of Tranquility as an option."

Anders' whole body stiffened at what she left unsaid.

If not Tranquility...then Claiming.

"So, all that's left is to be some Templar's whore," Anders spit the words out. "As I said at the beginning - that’s no choice at all."

"Not 'some Templar'," she countered quietly. "Unless over-ruled by a superior, the Rite of Claiming is performed by the Templar who..."

"Caught the prize?" Anders' voice dripped with disdain.

She did not argue his point. He had to hand it to her...she definitely seemed to recognize when she didn't have the high ground in the conversation.

"And why should I _choose_ to be Claimed by you?" the mage continued, his tone turning bitter. "I don't even know your name or what you look like. Much less who you are as a person - and your occupation doesn't lead me to hope that giving my spirit and body over to you is a mercy over death."

They stood there, staring at each other for several heartbeats. At least, Anders _thought_ they were staring.. _. He_ was staring at her, in any event. Who knew what she was doing under that helm.

Her hands moved, then, and the mage instinctively flinched.

_There it is...the brutality._

If only he wasn't so exhausted, so utterly drained of mana and physical stamina. He'd fight her, if only for the hope of impaling himself on her blade. Justice be damned... There was no hope, except in a quick death.

His expectations were shattered when no blow came. Anders blinked stupidly, staring almost slack-jawed, as she reached up and pulled off her helmet.

Hair as black as the raven feathers on his mantle. Blue eyes so piercing it was almost hard to look into them. Lightly sun-kissed skin and faint lines around the corners of her mouth that suggested that she often smiled.

"I'm Marion," she introduced herself without preamble. "Knight-Corporal Marion Hawke."

His observation was correct - she did smile often. As she spoke, the corners of her lips curled upward in such a natural way, that Anders wagered she didn't even know she was doing it.

"In public, you can call me Hawke, or Knight-Corporal. In private," there was just the faintest hesitation before she continued. "Marion will do."

Anger burned away his brief interest in her appearance.

"You assume there'll be an ‘in private’."

He curled his hands into fists. His wrists burned from the mage-bane that coated the cold iron bands that held him captive, but that didn't keep Anders from fiercely wishing that he could somehow break free.

Anything but this conversation, these “choices”. _Anything_.

Hawke, for her part, was either wholly ignorant of his boiling emotions, or she calmly ignored them.

"You have a spirit within you. How long do you think you would survive with another Templar who knew that?"

Anders just made a confused sort of noise in the back of his throat. He caught the intentional use of the word “spirit” and that surprised him. Damn near everything about her surprised him, truth be told. The result was that he felt oddly off-kilter around her; at least if she was a bully, like most Templars, he’d know what to expect.

"Not to mention, I don't know of any Templar in Kirkwall who would make the distinction between a _spirit_ and a _demon_."

"But, _you_ do?" he was still belligerent, but her words now gave him cause to temper the heat in his voice.

"Clearly," she lifted one elegant black eyebrow at him.

Anders snorted contemptuously.

"So...because I'm possessed by a spirit, you'd blackmail me into letting you Claim me?"

"If it saves your life and your soul, then yes," her own tone turned crisp.

"Why do you give such a damn about whether I live or die?" Anders hissed.

Hawke abruptly lifted her arms and turned her helmet so the opening was facing her.

"Because," her voice became muffled again as she slid the helmet back over her head. "I swore an oath to protect," she lifted her face and Anders knew that she was looking up at him, even though he could no longer see her eyes. "And to serve."

"I think you may have joined the wrong Order," her response left him feeling so unbalanced that he defaulted to sarcasm.

She ignored him. His eyes snapped to her right hand as it drifted across her torso to grip the pommel of her sword.

"Your choice, serah mage," there was both steel and kindness in her voice. "And if it is death...then I will honor that."

An offer made three times. Anders swallowed hard - ancient stories spoke of such verbal rituals. Three times the same question. Three times the same answer. Three times, and two parties were bound by oath.

 _No...no death,_ the thought was immediate.

Justice had spoken.

"No," Anders sighed heavily; he almost turned away from Hawke, but then he thought of something else.

She had introduced herself... He had to fight not to smirk as he searched for a hint of her eyes between her helmet’s occulariums.

"Though, if it's to be the Rite of Claiming, it might be fair for you to know who I am."

Hawke grasped his elbow and turned them both to start walking again. He let himself be lead and his next words were almost cheerful.

"Anders of Kinloch Hold."

Hawke's step faltered and then stopped completely - _exactly_ as he had expected. She stood perfectly still, no doubt processing the ramifications of everything his name implied. He almost started laughing, but then she turned her head and looked up at him, her words positively chilling.

"If you're Anders of Kinloch Hold, then why have you been arguing with me this entire time? You would do well to realize that I _am_ your only hope of mercy in this city."


	3. The Claiming: 3 - Hawke

_“We accept the love we think we deserve.”_

****Stephen Chbosky,** **The Perks of Being a Wallflower** **

* * *

 

"Anders of Kinloch Hold," Knight-Commander Meredith all but purred in unfettered delight. "You've netted quite the catch, Knight-Corporal Hawke."

The young Templar in question felt her stomach churn. There was absolutely _no_ way she'd be able to pull the rank necessary to Claim the likes of Anders. He was one hell of a prize - one that any Templar who knew his reputation would covet for their own.  Despite her best efforts, he would die after all...

Meredith's next words nearly shocked into her speechlessness.

"The only survivor of your squad and the one Templar in all of the Free Marches to capture an apostate that has evaded the Order in Ferelden at every turn," the Knight-Commander stood up from her chair and slowly prowled around the corner of her desk as she continued speaking softly. "We've had rumors for some time now, that Anders had deserted the Grey Wardens, had fled to the Free Marches, and was, quite possibly, hiding here in Kirkwall itself. We had uncovered no proof, though...and yet, here he is, in your custody," Meredith stopped in front of Hawke and her captive; the Knight-Commander's eyes traveled almost lewdly over the mage's narrow form, before her sharp gaze turned toward the junior Templar. "You have distinguished yourself...Knight-Lieutenant."

Hawke couldn't quite stifle a small jerk of surprise, or a shocked widening of her eyes. A small smile curled the edges of Meredith's grim mouth.

"Tell me, what should be his fate?"

Hawke's eyebrows twitched and she briefly fought the urge to lift one in an expression of further amazement. This conversation was not going how she had imagined it would...yet, it was going as well as one could have hoped, given Anders' circumstances and her rank.

"I would Claim him, Knight-Commander," she straightened her shoulders resolutely and lifted her chin a little higher.

Hawke knew she was making a daring choice and a part of her expected Meredith to deny her. A part of her expected _Meredith_ to invoke the Rite to Claim him, or for her superior to parade such a famous apostate in front of the Gallows' higher ranking officers for one of them to take. Now that she was face-to-face with her commander, she didn’t really expect Meredith to take her seriously and she wasn’t sure how she had _ever_ thought the elder Templar would.

"You _are_ bold, Hawke," the Knight-Commander murmured, her expression unexpectedly thoughtful. “Just as Knight-Captain Cullen said you were.”

There was a long moment of silence and Hawke resisted the urge to hold her breath in anxious anticipation.

She wanted to Claim Anders about as much as _he_ wanted to be Claimed. Her moral opinions about the Rite aside, he was a challenge and a potential pitfall to her career that she did not want _at all_. She'd seen the defiance in his eyes, had heard it in his voice, and could still see that defiance simmering beneath his surface, reflected in the set of his shoulders.  He wasn’t even cowed by Meredith - just standing in front of the Knight-Commander in her place of power was usually enough to bring any self-preserving mage to their knees in terror. Not so, he.

His defiance aside, however…

He had done as she had asked. When the Gallows finally came into view, he had stopped and dug his heels in. Hawke had initially thought he was about to fight her, but instead he blurted out:

 _“Fine. Claim me_.”

The way he had chosen to phrase that would have been almost comical in other circumstances...and in a Kirkwall _before_ the Rite of Claiming had become a brutal option for mage suppression. As it was, though, she had taken those three words for what they were - he had made his choice.

Hawke was a dedicated Andrastian. She believed, with all her heart, in the theology of the Chantry, if not necessarily all of its practices and applications _of_ said theology. She believed in redemption, believed that all mortals could be redeemed by the Maker's love and by Andraste's faith. Death was final...and Tranquility removed _all_ ability for choice...so, as repugnant as Claiming was to her, at least it had the potential for leading an apostate to redemption.

She would choose that for _any_ mage, over _any_ of the choices available to them in these circumstances. While she wasn’t exactly _glad_ that he had chosen the Rite of Claiming, she _was_ relieved. Or...she _would_ be relieved, hopefully, as soon as Meredith made her final verdict known....

"With such a prize comes considerable challenge," Meredith named what Hawke already knew to be true. "I wonder if he should not be given to more experienced hands. It will take an iron will to truly break him."

Anders snapped his head up in response to Meredith's barely veiled threat. The Knight-Commander reacted just as swiftly, as she back-handed him immediately in retribution. The mage grunted sharply as Meredith's armored gauntlet cut him high along the angle of his cheek and he stumbled slightly to the side from the force of the blow.

Hawke remained very, very still and forced her emotions to remain very, very neutral.

"You will keep your gaze lowered in the presence of your betters, apostate," Meredith hissed.

There was an expectant pause. When Anders didn't respond the way Meredith clearly demanded, she back-handed him again across the same cheek. Blood began to trickle freely down the mage's stubbled chin, the corner of his bottom lip now split apart by the Knight-Commander's gauntlet.

Another dangerous pause. After a second or two, Anders grudgingly muttered into the silence.

"Yes, ser."

"Oooh, yes," Meredith chuckled darkly. "This one will be a _challenge_."

She eyed Hawke carefully for several long seconds. The young Templar knew that her worth and potential was being seriously weighed against the Knight-Commander's own preference for Anders’ fate.

Finally, though...

"Tame this apostate, Knight-Lieutenant, bring him to heel under the greater wisdom of the Chantry and the Order, and there will be few limits to the potential of your career."

In other words: _"Break him, and rapid promotion is assured."_

In yet further words: _"He is yours to Claim."_

Hawke's palms immediately started to sweat. It was one thing to think about Claiming another human being...it was quite another to be told that she would, and that her entire career rested on either success or failure.

There was also that...very _personal_ reason for not wanting to Claim Anders - or anyone, ever, really. At least not until…

Well...she stuffed down all thoughts of _that_. It was hardly the time or the place. Although later, she _would_ have to give consideration and careful thought to the awkward position this entire disaster put her in.

“Now,” Meredith’s sharp, clear voice snapped Hawke out of her thoughts; both Templar and mage watched apprehensively as the Knight-Commander moved toward a large chest behind her desk. “I’m sure you know that the Rite of Claiming can be -” she paused just as she reached the other side of her desk and glanced over her shoulder at Hawke. “ _Experienced differently_ by female and male Templars.”

All the Templar discipline in Thedas couldn’t keep the heat from slowly burning Hawke’s ears. Meredith had turned her back to them, though, and was fiddling with a ring of keys that she had pulled from her belt, so the younger Templar had a few seconds to try and tamp down her embarrassment.

“The Rite is sealed by several elements, all of equal importance,” the Knight-Commander continued - apparently, _thankfully_ , her question had been rhetorical. “First, the collar must be put in place,” she turned around and laid a thick metal band with a chalky-white runestone in the center of it, on the desk between them. “Then the draught,” a small glass vial appeared next to the collar. “A drop of your blood in that, before the apostate drinks it.”

Cold blue eyes glanced over at Anders. Hawke was fairly certain she _didn’t_ imagine the gleam of cruel triumph in Meredith’s gaze.

“The Rite should be completed in a timely manner. However,” those eyes shifted over toward a Hawke who was trying desperately not to blush. “This is where it differs a bit for a woman.”

Meredith leaned her hip against the edge of her desk, as calm and collected as she ever was. She continued to look at Hawke and the young Templar was fairly certain that the Knight-Commander was taking in every nuance of her expression. Never in her life had she fought so hard to maintain a neutral face - raging blush notwithstanding.

“The Rite is sealed by an exchange, from Templar to apostate. You know what it is I speak of, yes?”

“Yes, serah,” Hawke was rather proud of herself - that came out very level, hardly any wavering of her voice at all.

She was simply thankful Meredith hadn’t said something that would make her grimace (fabled Templar discipline or no), like “an exchange of sexual fluids”. Although, granted, Hawke had heard everything about the current topic of conversation phrased far more crudely in the female barracks, just a few weeks earlier when Jetta had Claimed a mage.

 _No, no. Not gonna think about that_ ,” she told herself firmly, as she felt that treacherous blush deepen at just the mere mental mention of Jetta and her utter lack of propriety on...private matters.

“It is recommended that a female Templar allow a small amount of time to pass between the taking of the draught and the Claiming itself. That gives the potion time to take effect, which in turn can assure an...” Meredith paused, as if searching for the most prim way to parse her words. “An _easier_ Rite, with less resistance. It is also recommended that a female Templar Claim a mage with...some amount of _worldliness_ ,” Meredith let the last word linger in the air as she pushed herself off of her desk and reached for Anders’ chin.

Except for his one slip-up, the mage had been silent and damn near motionless the entire time they’d stood in front of the Knight-Commander. Hawke saw his hands clench into fists when Meredith touched him and she was suddenly glad that they were bound _behind_ his back. His very _nature_ was defiant enough...he didn’t need to make things worse by letting Meredith catch him being outwardly aggressive as well.

“In that respect, you’ll Claim well,” Meredith purred and Hawke was fairly certain the older woman was either trying to goad Anders, or humiliate him. “When I received word that Anders of Kinloch Hold may have found his way to Kirkwall, I had everything ever written about him sent to me. The Templars in Ferelden kept very meticulous records. It would seem that this one has always been something of a _whore_ ,” she scoffed and let go of Anders’ jaw with a dismissive flick of her wrist; she glanced over at Hawke with a grim smile.  ”But, at least that means he knows what to do with his mouth.”

Meredith stepped back from the mage and rolled her shoulders in something not quite a shrug. Hawke desperately wished the hour wasn’t so late. At least if it were day, she’d have the hope that Orsino might cast a spell awry from his own office across the hall and make the floor beneath her feet open up and swallow her. But, since _that_ was definitely not going to happen, she instead prayed, _fervently_ , that Meredith would just... _stop talking_.

Jetta had painted a pretty thorough picture of what she did - what she had made her mage _do_ \- to seal their Claiming. Hawke had blushed for _days_ after - all it took was looking at Jetta, or just thinking about her, for her ears to turn an impressive shade of scarlet. She was now fairly certain that she was going to do the same over her own Knight-Commander for a good solid week. Maybe, ever.

Although, credit where it was due… Meredith’s explanation of the Rite had been a lot more polite than Jetta’s was, Hawke thought ruefully.

“One quick word, however,” the Knight-Commander startled Hawke when she put a hand on her shoulder.

Meredith had stepped between Hawke and Anders, with her back angled slightly away from the mage - not quite turned toward him, but turned just enough that he couldn’t see past the width of her armor to Hawke. The young Templar’s eyes turned wide when Meredith leaned over and whispered so softly against her ear that Hawke had to strain to make out her words -

“I thought you content to marry yourself to the Maker. This shows initiative and ambition, and I approve,” Meredith patted her approvingly on the shoulder and Hawke thought her knees might buckle from the weight of the Knight-Commander’s hand and the sudden shakiness of her own legs. “But, the knowledge of your chastity is power,” there was a long, significant pause. “Don’t give it to him.”

With that, the Knight-Commander stepped away from Hawke and turned to consider the vial and collar waiting on her carefully organized desk. A breath, then another, and then Meredith moved around the corner of her desk, toward her chair. The Gallows clock tower began to chime and Hawke counted twelve tolls while her commander took her seat and waved a hand toward the items between them.

“Begin the Rite,” Meredith explained after a breath’s pause. “If he takes the draught now, it will have time to work its way into his system by the time you’ve settled into your new room.”

Hawke _almost_ asked why she was getting the luxury of a room, a privilege reserved only for higher ranking officers and...but then she answered her own question. A private room was granted to any Templar who Claimed an apostate. It afforded the pair privacy...when the Templar wanted it, at least. In her year at the Gallows, Hawke had become all too aware of her fellow Templars’ rather alarming disregard for privacy and decorum, most _especially_ when it came to those who had taken the Rite of Claiming. Claimed apostates were all too often treated like possessions to be bartered and traded, and there was a distinct lack of personal _decency_ enforced among the Templars as a whole.

 _Not with me_ , Hawke vowed to herself as she silently stepped forward and took the collar in her hands; she turned and gave Anders a careful once-over with her eyes.

His whole body was tense, rigid; a muscle in his jaw kept jumping, which gave Hawke the distinct suspicion that he was chewing the inside of his cheek. He didn’t look up from whatever spot he had chosen on the floor to contemplate, but the young Templar didn’t need to see his face to know that Anders was _scared_.

This was, most assuredly, the sum of all his fears; he had no way of knowing that Hawke had to force her hands from shaking, that she made a silent vow to the Maker to resist the temptations and pressures of the Gallow’s toxic culture.

“Kneel,” she forced herself to order him as she would a new recruit.

Hawke had to suppress the urge to reach out to help steady him. Kneeling with one’s hands bound behind their back was hardly the easiest task that could be given. But, she could show no kindness to him, could give him nothing that would be perceived as “weakness” by the sharp-eyed Knight-Commander behind her. So, she stood with the Claiming collar in her hands and watched as Anders slowly, clumsily, lowered his center of gravity to bend one knee, then the other. He had to stop and start a few times, had to readjust his balance once or twice, but overall the man had surprising agility.

As he finally settled on both knees in front of her, Hawke took a deep, silent breath, and made three vows that, had they been alone, she would have spoken out loud to him.

 _I will not share you_ , she promised as she wrestled the stiff collar open far enough to fit around his neck.

 _I will not force you ever again after tonight_ , Hawke stepped forward and placed the band against his throat; she felt the shiver as it raced down the entire length of Anders’ body and the nervous sweat coating her fingers made her fumble as she tugged it closed against his pale skin.

 _And I will keep the secret of the spirit inside of you_ , she gently tugged the ends of his hair out from beneath the collar before she slipped the holding pin in to seal it shut; she felt another shudder roll through the mage at the brief gentleness of her fingertips against the back of his neck.

Their eyes met as she backed away from him. Oh, yes - there was fear there, as well as anger. _So_ much anger. Hawke stilled for half a second when she thought she saw an ethereal blue flash amid the golden-brown of his accusatory gaze. She didn’t dare shake her head, or make any sort of move that might give Meredith the impression that there was some sort of silent communication, or contest of wills, going on between them. So, Hawke settled for raising a single eyebrow and fixing him with a brief, but pointed look - the kind she used to give in warning to her brother, Carver, when he tried to push her buttons.

Anders dragged his gaze back to the floor and Hawke breathed an inward sigh of relief as she turned to pick up the vial. A few brisk movements and she had the stopper pulled out, one of her small daggers in her right hand, and the tip of it pressed sharply against the fleshy pad of her left thumb. Blood welled and she let her thumb hover over the vial’s open mouth, until one perfectly round drop fell into the draught. Her blood separated into smoky tendrils within the clear glass container, and stained the whole potion a subtle pink. Then there was a strange sort of _pulse_ and the draught was no longer an unassuming milky white, but a throbbing crimson.

Without any further preamble, she picked up the vial and turned back toward Anders. Hawke knew she couldn’t afford any hint of hesitation - not just because Meredith was watching like a vulture, but because Hawke was afraid that if she paused, even for a second, she’d lose her nerve.

She took Anders’ chin in her free hand and titled his face up toward hers. Wordlessly, she pressed the rim of the vial against his bottom lip. Her eyes briefly fixated on the thin line of drying blood that stained his skin from the corner of his mouth down to the underside of his sharply angled jaw.

Blood. This was blood magic, no matter how much the Chantry and the Order ignored the fact. As a Templar, she was bound by her vows and her beliefs to kill Anders if he ever had the gall to reach for such forbidden arts...and yet, here she was, invoking the same unholy knowledge to bind him to her will. Blood and sex, the two most powerful forces of life in existence, the very essence and blessing of the Maker himself, and here she was, his faithful servant, twisting such gifts for no other reason than to exercise absolute power over another.

 _Absolute power corrupts absolutely_.

Hawke couldn’t tear her eyes from Anders’, as he opened his mouth and wrapped his lips around the mouth of the vial. He titled his head back and she moved with him, her fingers gripping the bottom of the glass. The draught, tainted with her blood, disappeared with a simple toss back of his head and one swift swallow.

And it was done. She could now Order him if she wanted to; in a few hours’ time, he would be completely subject to her will.

 _Blessed Andraste, don’t let this corrupt me_ , Hawke pulled the vial back and called on deep reserves of discipline to keep her hand from trembling as she turned and placed the empty container back down on Meredith’s desk. _Please don’t let me corrupt_ **him**.

She had wanted to save a life - a life not so different from her father’s, or her sister’s. A life like others she had vowed to protect. She could have let him go...but she had swiftly learned that it would be wise if she balanced the number of apostates she let slip out of her grasp, and how many she brought back to the Gallows. Those decisions would always haunt her - who would be free and who would not. _This_ would always haunt her - the memory of Anders drinking the Claiming draught, his eyes dark with fear and...she hoped not hate. But, it was most likely exactly that. She had saved his life, and some semblance of his own self...but at what price? What demon had she just bargained with?

Hawke lifted her eyes toward Meredith, who simply nodded. All business, all brusque efficiency, that was the Knight-Commander. Who, thankfully, couldn’t read minds and who couldn’t read the truth of Hawke’s tumultuous thoughts in her eyes.“

"Well done, Knight-Lieutenant,” the older woman whisked the empty vial off the top of the desk and to where, Hawke couldn’t fathom. “The hour is late. Claim Anders of Kinloch Hold for your own in what remains of the night, and then bring him to the Courtyard at seventh bell," Meredith leaned back in her seat, the very picture of control and power. "He must pay further for spilling the blood of your brothers and sister, and of a Tranquil."

"Knight-Commander?" Hawke inquired hesitantly, not quite certain what it was Meredith was ordering.

"Blood for blood," was the merciless response. "Twenty lashes should suffice. Delivered by your hand, as would now be your right and duty."

A cold, hard knot tightened in the pit of Hawke's stomach. She'd seen plenty of whippings in her year at Kirkwall - it was at least a weekly occurrence. But, never so severe. Ten lashes, at the most; once, an apostate had received a round dozen as her judgement. But, never _twenty_. And _she_ had certainly never been told to deliver the punishment.

At heart, Hawke was a gentle soul. She had inherited that from her mother and shared it in common with her apostate sister, Bethany. She saw her role as a Templar as one of a protector, of benevolence and mercy. She had found that approach sorely challenged in Kirkwall, though - certainly now more than ever.

And yet...the alternative was stark. Anders was made an example of either by her hand...or by the hand of another Kirkwall officer. He would receive no kindness, no mercy, from anyone other than her.

"Yes, serah," she replied, her voice resolute and appropriately deferential.

"Be about your business, then," Meredith dismissed them...but not before a vicious smile glinted in her gaze. "The name ‘Anders’ has been whispered all too frequently among the mages here, as a symbol of false hope and rebellion. After seven escape attempts from the Ferelden Circle, and after mercy foolishly granted to him by the Grey Warden Commander, his defiance finally ends _here_. It is just due that every mage in the Gallows see their hero collared, Claimed, and finally served the justice he deserves."

Hawke saw Anders' hands tighten into fists yet again at Meredith's cold disregard. But, he did not raise his gaze, and he gave her no resistance as she grabbed him by his right elbow, hauled him to his feet, and marched him briskly out of the Knight-Commander's office.

And as they walked down the grim grey corridor, all Hawke could do was thank Andraste and the Maker both that they had delivered Anders of Kinloch Hold to her now-shaking hands, and not to the hateful grasp of any other Gallows Templar.


	4. The Claiming: 4 - Anders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TAGS: Nipple piercings, Male gaze, Loss of control (this is where the dub-con aspects really start to come into play)

_“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”_

****Andre Gide,** **Autumn Leaves** **

* * *

 

Never in his life had Anders ever felt so utterly _defeated_.

He stood in the center of an unfamiliar room and rubbed his sore wrists, lost in the roiling sea of his emotions. Twelve hours before he had been a free man. A very poor man and a hunted man, to be sure. But, at least he had been his _own_ man.

Now… His eyes flickered over to the fireplace, where knelt the woman who had finally leashed him. She’d been crouching there for a good five minutes, clearly struggling to start a decent fire. If his hands hadn’t been burning from the manacle’s coat of mage-bane, his mana wasn’t all but non-existent, and he’d be so inclined to help her, he could have started the fire with a wave of his hand.

But, his hands _were_ burning, his mana _was_ down to its barest dredges, and he was _not_ so inclined to be helpful. It could - and most likely _would_ \- end quite badly for him, but Anders was of a mind to resist, defy, and irritate as much as he could at Marion Hawke’s every turn.

 _“...I_ am _your only hope of mercy in this city.”_

He’d thought her quite full of herself then, and he would still now, if hadn’t been for the memory of her fingers lingering on the back of his neck. Her touch had been so _gentle_ when she’d pulled his hair free from the collar; the very nature of doing such a small kindness on his behalf strongly suggested that she was not an ill-natured person. Anders had analyzed that subtle action the entire silent walk from Meredith’s office, to the night officer’s desk where Hawke was assigned the room and given its key, to now. He had tried to discern even the slightest hint of sexual intent in the brush of her fingers, even tried to impose that upon it. But, such an interpretation of her touch wouldn’t stick.

She touched him the way the Hero of Ferelden had, when she had found him after the Battle of Vigil’s Keep. He’d been slumped down on a fallen chunk of battlement, more exhausted and drained than he was now, his face covered in soot, his robes splashed all over with blood. She had sat down next to him and tucked a few strands of loose hair behind his ear, as she asked him how he holding up. It had been such a small, insignificant gesture...but it was the first time Anders could recall where he was touched by someone other than a lover in a way that made him feel like they truly cared, like they truly believed that he _mattered_.

And even then, he could count on one hand the number of lovers who had ever touched him with such true tenderness. There had only ever been one, really, and…

 _Oh, Maker_ , Anders scrubbed his hands wearily across his eyes.

He could not think of Karl. Not now, not with the Claiming draught unfurling through his veins, not with his Templar _owner_ a few paces away, not with the empty bed looming between them.

Grief sat in his chest, though, as hard and as dense as a wedge of ironwood. It struggled briefly for dominance against anger, desperation, fear, and uncertainty. One emotion was missing, however: vengeance, that sense of righteous fury. Justice hadn’t made a move against the edges of his unconscious since he’d swallowed the draught and that worried Anders more than he cared to admit to himself. Would the Claiming suppress the Fade spirit as well? The mage desperately hoped not - he _needed_ Justice, _needed_ the strength and sense of iron-willed resolve that the spirit gave him.

For the first time in a year, he felt truly _alone_ , wholly present in his body, undivided in his thoughts.

Well, no...that wasn’t exactly true, he decided after a moment of intense introspection. There _was_ something rising, stirring, yawning, stretching inside of him; he _was_ becoming aware of something _else_ inside of him, something beyond the Taint, something newer than Justice.

His eyes traveled back over toward Hawke, who still squatted in front of the fireplace, quietly cursing to herself and the paraphenelia in her hands. Desperate to distract himself from his thoughts, and oddly restless, Anders went over to investigate. As soon as his shadow fell over her, the Templar turned her head and squinted up at him. A rueful smile tugged at her mouth, but her eyes remained solemn.

“Help?” she laughed; the sound was brief and self-deprecating.

Anders was quite surprised when she thrust a char-cloth covered flint and a c-steel at him. For a moment, he sputtered, completely caught off-guard.

“You do realize that of the two of us, _you’re_ probably the best qualified to do this,” he sputtered. “I’ve spent plenty of time in the wilds, for sure, but when I wanted a fire, I didn’t use these.”

“I figured,” Hawke rubbed her hands on the cloth draped over her thighs.

She lowered herself down to one knee, no doubt to put some of the strain off of said thighs. Anders found himself eyeing the robes that were stretched taut across the top of Hawke’s legs, by virtue of the fact that she’d gotten the edge of her uniform caught beneath the tip of one boot. He readjusted the items in his hand and found himself idly wondering what those thighs might actually look like, bare of steel plate armor and thick Chantry robes.

“But, uh...well, I’ve been fumbling around here for the last five minutes. I might as well share the challenge.”

“And here I thought _I_ was supposed to be the challenge,” he muttered under his breath.

Even as he spoke, though, his thumb passed over the char cloth laying on top of the flint she’d handed him. It was...strangely damp. This small discovery made Anders frown slightly and shoot Hawke a searching look. He opened his mouth to comment on the condition of her materials, when he was distracted by the flush high in her cheeks, and the way her gaze had dropped to the floor, as if…

…As if she were embarrassed by what he had said.

Anders snapped his mouth shut and looked down at the items in his hands. What in Thedas did _she_ have to be embarrassed about? Anger flared at the thought...but so did something else. Something darker. After a moment of desperately trying to avoid identifying the feeling that was rising hot in his chest, he crouched down next to her and started striking the c-steel against the edge of the flint.

“This would be a lot easier if your char cloth wasn’t damp,” he picked up the thread of conversation in an attempt to hold the smothering silence at bay.

“Yes, well…” Hawke’s words trailed off in what could only be categorized as a nervous chuckle.

Anders watched out of the corner of his eye as she wiped her palms on her robes again. He snarled softly at the flint in his hands and after a few futile strikes, he threw it down. That startled the Templar next to him and he didn’t miss the way she flinched, the way her right hand instinctively reached across her torso toward her left hip, where her blade usually rested.

“It would actually be _easiest_ if I could use my bloody magic,” he shot up and towered over her.

He expected her to get to her feet, too, but she continued to kneel on the stones in front of the fire...in front of him. The sight of her in such an unguarded position...in such a _submissive_ position...made his skin feel as if it were stretched too tight over his bones.

Now, _this_ was a dark fantasy he had idly imagined more times than he cared to admit. A Templar at _his_ feet, staring up wary-eyed at _him_ , nervously submissive to  _him_ , a _mage_ … Meredith had called him a whore, and Anders supposed that wasn’t exactly an unfair assessment. What the good Knight-Commander didn’t know, however, was that he liked being a whore _in control._

 _That_ was a line of thinking that would get in him far more trouble than it was worth. Anders closed his eyes and abruptly turned away from Hawke, so that he was facing the open fireplace, his profile toward her. He inhaled deeply and internally considered what little mana he had left.

He had an affinity for fire. It was the first manifestation of his powers, and the first elemental force his magic reached for in moments of threat and stress. It had always puzzled him, honestly, that he was as good of a healer as he was - the elemental magics came to him just as easily, if not _easier_. And ahead of them all, always _fire._

It would only take a spark. He eyed the fire bed she had already prepared, complete with a decently sized “nest” of tinder in the center. His wrists burned from the mage-bane, but the effects were slowly wearing off with each minute that passed. His mana was too low to give Justice any fuel for manifestation...but it wasn’t so low that he couldn’t summon up a few licks of flame.

He bent his knees and lowered himself down beside her again. Anders reached out to the tinder, until his fingers brushed against the torn bits of jute that Hawke had chosen. It took a snap or two, but on the third attempt, a spark flared to life between the friction of his skin. A fourth, a fifth snap, and the tinder finally caught. The two of them watched carefully for a few minutes, to make certain that _all_ the tinder caught, and that the fledgling fire spread to the dried wood beneath and around it.

After the first pop of splintering wood, Hawke stood up. It was only then that Anders realized that he had used magic in front of her...without even _thinking_ to ask her permission. He angled a side-eyed glance up at her, their roles now reversed as _he_ knelt at _her_ feet. A sudden caution made him linger in that submissive stance - he had no idea what the boundaries of Hawke’s Orders would be, but he was fairly certain that her first Command would be to leash his magic.

“Thank you,” she stepped away from him and the fire, which left him feeling abruptly conflicted.

Why couldn’t she just act like a _normal_ Templar?

“You might want to pick those up, though,” she jerked her chin toward the flint, cloth, and c-steel that he had thrown to the floor.

Anders hesitated for a moment. She hadn’t Ordered him...certainly no more so than if _he_ told someone else to pick up things they had carelessly tossed around. She spoke to him in a level voice, as if he were any ordinary person, as if _she wasn’t afraid of him_.

That particular revelation made Anders narrow his eyes thoughtfully at her, as she turned slightly away from him and began to fiddle with claps of her breastplate, up near the curve of her shoulder.

She.

Wasn’t.

Afraid.

Of.

Him.

Nervous, definitely, if the char cloth and her rubbing her palms were anything to go by. But, there was a big bit of difference between _nervous_ and _scared_. Anders was honestly a bit gob-smacked, as he rose to his feet by the fire and just _stared_ at her. After a few minutes, though, his brain caught up with what he was watching and that dark _something_ began to hum through his blood again.

As Hawke revealed more of her truer form with each piece of armor that she pulled off, Anders began to realize that what he was feeling was _arousal_. Granted, that final identification came to him rather belatedly and not before Hawke put a foot up on the edge of the bed and bent over slightly to start unbuckling her heavy boots. She had stripped down to a pair of loose brown trousers (apparently, Templars _did_ wear something beneath those skirts of theirs) and a thin, off-white linen shirt that was dark in spots from sweat. The cloth stuck to the curve of her back and Anders could count each ridge of her spine as her bent position drew her shirt tight across her body. His eyes slid down, only to land on the (quite delightful) curve of her (sure-to-be deliciously firm) ass. He suddenly felt hot enough to catch on fire himself and his cock twitched with an interest he had _not_ expected to have.

He growled again, low in his throat, and rubbed a hand roughly across a chin he hadn’t shaved in two days. The mage lifted his head and scowled at the darkness above them. He _didn’t_ want this. He _shouldn’t_ want this.

_“It is recommended that a female Templar allow a small amount of time to pass between the taking of the draught and the Claiming itself. That gives the potion time to take effect…”_

Meredith’s words echoed through his memory. The hand at his jaw moved up and passed over his eyes, as he gritted his teeth and bit back a groan of frustration (desperation?). This wasn’t him...the hardening of his cock wasn’t due to his _own_ desires…

Anders wasn’t sure whether to be relieved by that, or repulsed. His emotions seemed to settle in some weird no-man’s land between the two extremes. He dimly heard his name called and he lowered both his hand and his head to peer across the small room at the source of all his internal angst.

“Anders,” a small upward twitch at the edge of Hawke’s mouth suggested that she had called his name more than once.

Thanks to the light cast by the unobstructed fire - he was standing just to the left of it, which gave it an opportunity to lighten most of the nooks and crannies of the room - Anders could see Hawke’s neck and cheeks brighten in another blush. This time, the sight of it didn’t fill him with disgust or irritation.

Quite the opposite, in fact. He was losing the battle between his own will and the Claiming draught now _throbbing_ through him...and he was starting to _not care_.

She jerked her chin at him, though her eyes fell just short of meeting his own gaze.

“Strip.”

Anders would ordinarily take umbrage at such a terse, blunt command. But, the primal part of his brain had already started to urge him to reach up and unbuckle the clasps of his coat. Hakwe just gave him the necessary blessing to follow through with his own instinct.

He didn’t even stop to consider the fact that he’d been subconsciously waiting for her permission.

He did, however, have trouble maintaining eye contact with her as he disrobed. The draught was definitely taking hold of him, but there was enough of his own self left in control that Anders couldn’t bring himself to make more of the situation than it was. Watching her watch him undress felt entirely too intimate considering the circumstances that had brought them to this point. And usually, when a pretty woman watched him reveal his body to her, he went about it more slowly.

Tonight, _here_ , in the Gallows with the Claiming collar heavy and hard against his throat, Anders undressed with his usual efficiency. He was startled into stopping, however, when he felt a hand land lightly on his as he began to pull at his trouser laces.

Hawke had moved to stand in front of him. Anders drank in the sight of her - she had taken off her shirt, so all she had above the waistband of her pants was a firmly bound band of cloth across her breasts. She had let her hair down, too. Before, it had been pulled back into a sensible bun, but now black tresses spilled over her shoulders in heavy waves.

Anders couldn’t help himself - he reached out and curled a lock that lay against the top of her binding band around his right index finger. He rubbed his thumb across the silky strands and Hawke leaned ever so slightly into him. She reached up herself and the mage belatedly realized that she was studying his chest with intense interest. He glanced down at himself just as she raised hesitant fingers toward his left nipple - which was pierced through with an unyielding hoop of gold.

He immediately let go of her hair and snapped his hand through the space between them to grab her wrist, _just_ before she could brush her fingers across his puckered skin, across that tiny bit of precious metal.

“ _Don’t_ make this gentle,” he rasped in reply to the startled, wide-eyed look she turned up to him.

He pushed her hand until it was pressed against her chest. Only then did he let go. He didn’t care if he was pushing his luck. Anders didn’t think he could stand to live in his own skin anymore if she took him with _kindness_ , with actual sexual interest and sensual _desire_. If she took him like he was to be her  _lover._

“Don’t make this into anything more than what it is,” he let his hand fall to his side and clenched it into a frustrated fist.

He should have left it at that, but a look crossed through her eyes that he swore was _hurt_. Anger pounded inside of his chest, warred with the false arousal that told him that he wanted nothing more than to be buried to the hilt inside of her, nothing more than the taste of her smeared across his tongue.

“Claim me, and have done with it.”

She’d been looking at him with something like wonder, like curiosity. At his words, her expression shuttered, until she looked at him the way she had looked at Meredith. Closed, cautious, _disciplined_.

Her words were uttered so softly, that they were almost a whisper.

“On the bed, then.”


	5. The Claiming: 5 - Hawke (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TAGS: Cunilingus, Female on Top, Loss of Control

_"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."_

**Neil Gaiman,** **The Kindly Ones**

**( The** **Sandman** **, #9)**

* * *

 

 _How did I possibly think this was a good idea?_ Hawke wondered as she watched Anders stomp angrily over to the big four-poster bed. _I should have just let him go. I've done the same for other mages. I do the same every time I pass Bethany in the street…_

Why _had_ she felt compelled to Claim him? This bound _both_ of them, after all. To each other. For as long as _she_ lived - which, from what she had seen so far for a Kirkwall Templar, could be much shorter than the average lifespan, even of other Templars. If she died, Anders died...but the reverse didn't hold true.

So, yes. She was bound to him, but the binding was not equal in any way. In life or death, she _owned_ him. The most she might have to suffer from him was a bad attitude and defiance. From her? He lay vulnerable to either the best or the most base within her.

Hawke watched Anders flop back onto the bed in a sprawl that bordered on indecent. He lay on his back, his arms folded beneath his head, his legs spread open with one down and the other bent at the knee, his foot flat on the faded quilt. Her eyes kept wanting to drift up toward his chest, where the temptation of gold glinted without shame. She was fascinated by them - by those two gold hoops. She was fascinated by _him_ , by the idea that a man (that _anyone,_ really) would adorn himself so.

She fought a blush as he sought out her gaze and she quickly looked away. Hawke felt...conflicted and somewhat confused. Then, there were his words… They had stung, and she felt guilty for forcing him into their current situation.

It _was_ rape, wasn't it? True, he had told her to Claim him. And true, she had offered him an alternative three separate times (even if it _was_ death). But...Hawke was suddenly wondering if Tranquility was not a better option, after all, than _this_. The smoldering look in his dark eyes, the bulge between his thighs that she had nervously glimpsed out of the corner of her sight...those indications of lust weren't _his_. He didn't desire _her_. It was just the Claiming draught taking over his will.

Time was wasting, however, and Hawke took trembling fingers to the laces of her own trousers. There was time enough afterwards, she supposed, to figure out why she decided that the best course of action was to Claim him, and _not_ to let him go as he had pleaded. If asked at that moment, she would have simply blamed it on her natural impulsiveness. She certainly couldn’t blame current circumstances on any sense of “Templar duty”. Hawke had broken so many Order rules in regards to mages (most specifically, her own father and sister) that she had stopped worrying long ago about whether or not she followed “the rules”. So, no, Templar obedience wasn’t a factor in any way… Perhaps it was her own hubris, then, that had played such a crucial role in bringing them both to this point in time, since she should have _definitely_ let him go once she’d known his name. She had gambled too loosely with the very real possibility that Meredith would have invoked her right of rank - if not to Claim him, then to at least offer him to another, higher-ranking Templar.

Anders of Kinloch Hold wasn’t _a_ prize. He was _the_ prize. A fact that his public flogging on the morrow acknowledged quite clearly.

Those _eyes_ of his haunted her, though, every time she closed her own… That otherworldly, _Fade_ blue. That thundering voice that had sounded nothing like him, and yet had his voice just beneath it, speaking in unison. Was _that_ why she had decided not to let him go? Because of the spirit within him?

She huffed irritably at herself - she was distracting herself, stalling in the face of her anxiety. And yet...while she had brought this down on herself, had brought it down on _him_ , the fact still remained that she had...never done this before. None of it. Besides infrequent, accidental glimpses of her Templar brothers, she hadn't ever seen a naked man before. She had certainly never been naked _in front of_ a man before. She hadn't ever even brought herself fully to orgasm - Templar barracks weren't exactly known for their privacy and Hawke had always been terrified of being 'discovered' in the middle of exploring herself.

There was no way out now, though, except forward. Anders had taken the draught. If the Rite wasn't consummated, then he really _would_ die, and the whole song and dance of the last few hours would be rendered pointless. She wouldn’t have “saved” him from anything, least of all her own ego.

Hawke stepped out of the pool of brown cloth at her naked feet and chanced a glance up at Anders. He was watching her, eyes hooded and expression unnervingly unreadable. Or...perhaps it was that she simply didn’t know what to _name_ the look he was giving her. Words like dark and _hungry_ , impatient and _dangerous_ , sprang to mind...  The look in Anders’ eyes held carnal knowledge, and with that, _power_.

 _“Don’t give it to him_ ”, Meredith whispered in her ear yet again, as she fumbled with the laces of her binding band.

Thanks to Jetta and the _female_ mage she had Claimed, Hawke knew that penetration was not necessary for a woman to complete the Rite. The cool air of the room kissed her breasts and the young Templar saw Jetta’s lascivious wink in her mind’s eye.

 _“It’s not 'bout the mage swappin’ fluids with_ you _. It’s ‘bout_ **you** _swappin’ fluids with the mage. They take in_ **your** _essence. Not the other way ‘round. I suppose if you’re Claimin’ a male mage, that’s a bonus for you to have should you want,”_ the memory of Jetta waved her hand dismissively. _“But, thank the Maker, for some o’ us that’s not necessary.”_

As her small-clothes joined the pile at her feet, Hawke decided that she would heed Meredith’s advice, if just this one time. In the moment, it wasn’t so much about unwittingly giving Anders power, as it was that she didn’t want to give her virginity up to _this_. She wanted desire, affection, _love_ … She would not find that here, not tonight, and certainly not ever with a mage the likes of Anders, who would surely sneer at the naivety her inexperience.

Oh why, oh _why_ , had she been so short-sighted and foolish?

 _Blessed Andraste_ , Hawke prayed with each step she took toward the bed, toward the apostate, toward the Claiming. _Please...may something,_ **_anything_** _, good come of this._

She couldn't meet Anders' gaze as she reluctantly approached the bed. She was flushed from nose to navel and it took every ounce of self-discipline not to try and cover herself. As much as she was able, Hawke wanted to avoid giving the apostate in her bed any overt clues that she was way in over her head.

She could feel her heart thudding heavily in her chest, as if it were trying to pound its way out of her body. The young Templar tried to force herself to dissociate her feelings from the moment, the way she suppressed her emotions during battle. This was _much_ different than a physical conflict, however. This was _personal_ , _intimate_ ; Hawke had no armor to hide behind, no blade and shield to wield between her and Anders. This was foreign territory - territory she had never intended to explore until...well...until she found someone willing to share more than just a bed with her.

She climbed up on the bed and then paused, a sense of panic clawing up her spine. Still unable to look Anders in the eye, Hawke's gaze was again riveted to his piercings. Maker help her, but she wanted to _touch them_.

The mage's reaction from her first attempt to sate her curiosity stayed her hand, however. Hawke knelt on the bed next to Anders’ side and worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she tried to figure out how to proceed. Jetta echoed through her mind.

" _There's a number of positions to choose from, but if any of ya' find yourselves a mage to Claim, go with the most dominant position. You on top, always. Though...if that makes ya' uncomfortable, sittin' in a chair an' havin' them kneel between your legs would work, too, for the whole dominance thing._ "

Hawke had never put anything into practice, but she wasn't without knowledge herself. Holy Order or not, the Templars were like any other group of soldiers, especially the men. She'd heard it all by now...and while women like Jetta were less common, there _were_ books that made their rounds through the female barracks. Hawke had read plenty and had seen her fair share of detailed illustrations. Her eyes drifted toward the threadbare armchair to the side of the fireplace and one such image flashed through her mind.

_She was sitting in the chair, her legs hooked over the arms. Anders knelt obediently at her command, his big hands sliding beneath her to cup her ass and pull her even closer to the edge of the seat. She was completely spread open to his gaze, to whatever he would do to her…_

The very thought of such a wanton position made the tips of her ears burn even hotter. Jetta may have described it as a dominant position, but to Hawke, it seemed entirely too vulnerable. Too...intimate. There was absolutely no way she was going to present herself in such a way to Anders.

On top it was, then.

Rough fingertips slid up her thigh and startled her out of her reverie. This time, she looked at Anders...and found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from his.  His eyes weren't Fade blue, but they seemed to glow all the same. Like molten gold, Hawke thought with something like awe (and no small amount of fear). There was _heat_ in the mage's eyes, equal parts anger and…

It took Hawke to figure out what else was warring in his heavy-lidded gaze. But when his eyes dropped down and slid over her naked body, she figured it out. The truth made her shiver, as if he'd run his hand down her sides.

 _Lust_. That was _lust_ in Anders' eyes.

"Pity the circumstances," he murmured and the deeper, rougher pitch of his voice _did things_ to her. "You _are_ a beautiful woman."

He moved his hand up her thigh in time with his words. His gaze went up even further, stopping at her chest. The fire's heat hadn't quite reached the bed yet and the cold air had caressed her nipples into dusky pebbles. Hawke didn't dare look down at herself and she fought the urge to cross her arms protectively over her breasts.

Most of her sister Templars had small breasts, in proportion to their slim, athletic builds. Hawke, however, leaned a little too close toward her good friend Aveline in size and stature - tall, broad-shouldered, her silhouette thick with muscle. Her shape wasn't rectangular like Aveline's (Hawke's waistline tucked in just enough above the flare of her hips to give her a pleasing set of curves), and she wasn't quite as muscular as Aveline (who could beat her at arm-wrestling without _too_ much effort). But, like Aveline, Hawke had a chest to match her proportions.

Her breasts were full and surprisingly perky for their size. They couldn't boast “overflowing bounty”, as Hawke had heard it said of others, but -

She risked a glance down at the hand spread open around her thigh.

Her breasts were definitely big enough to completely fill Anders' grip...if she was judging their size correctly. He cupped the curve of her thigh and that was no small feat. A lot of Hawke's power came from her legs, and it showed.

The hand in question suddenly let go of her and reached upward. A startled gasp fell sharply out of Hawke's mouth as he found his mark, and she abruptly parted her lips in an "o" of surprise.

Fingers as cold as ice danced lightly over her right nipple. They made her skin pucker even tighter and a jolt of _something_ shot down her body, into her very core.

Anders propped himself up on one elbow and turned toward her, so he could reach her better. He flattened his whole palm against the swell of her breast and Hawke cried out in shock. _His whole hand was ice_.

A devious smirk pulled at the corners of Anders' mouth. As suddenly as his frozen skin had startled her, he pulled a low moan out of her as his touch turned to fire. Not hot enough to burn...but hot enough to get her attention and to tell her that he was playing with magic.

"Anders…!" Hawke struggled to form words as that scorching hand slid slowly, firmly off of her breast and down the firm ridges of her stomach.

She tried to throw his words back at him - " _Don't make this more than what it is_ " - but she couldn't _form_ words. Heat burst to life inside of her and her whole body trembled in anticipation...of what, she couldn't exactly say. But, Anders’ fingers kept going lower and lower, until they were dragging through the curls between her legs.

Hawke grabbed a hold of his wrist, more out of sudden uncertainty, than any desire to actually _stop_ him. The half-naked apostate next to her paused for just a fraction of a moment and their eyes met - hers wide with shock, his heavy with intent. They both took a breath, then another, and as they watched each other, Hawke felt Anders slip his index finger between her folds. He was a man well-familiar with female anatomy, because he only had to slide his finger down a few mere centimeters, before the tip of it rested above her clit. Then he tapped it lightly - and a _literal_ shock burst across every nerve in her lower body.

"Oh!" she cried out as she involuntarily bent at the waist and clamped Anders' hand between her thighs.

Before she could grab his wrist and pull his hand away, he tapped her clit again. This time, Hawke nearly fell over _onto_ him and her sharp gasp of...was that _pleasure_?...had him chuckling darkly in response.

Before she could do _anything_ , Hawke felt Anders pull his hand away from her cunt and unexpectedly strong arms abruptly hauled her on top of him. Trained to react by sheer instinct, Hawke twisted in his grip, threw her left leg over his waist so she was straddling him, and broke his hold on her with practiced ease. She flattened her palms on his chest (those delicious hoops cool against her clammy palms) and rose up above him…

...But not before he managed to _purr_ into her ear, _just_ as she pushed upward…

"Treat me well, Templar, and I can make you crave my touch more than you do lyrium."

 _That_ unexpected declaration robbed Hawke of coherent thought as thoroughly as the little electrical shocks he had sent through her clit. She bolted upright and stared down at him, nonplussed.

After a brief spat of sputtering, she managed to wheeze:

"Who is Claiming who here, exactly?"

Anders' expression darkened as his brows tightened together and the self-satisfied smirk that had been on his lips disappeared. He lifted his chin slightly, as if exposing his throat - his _collar -_ to her.

"Oh, _you're_ in charge, Templar. No mistake about it. But," his eyes flashed in challenge. "I am naturally inclined to contrariness, and you've yet to Order me to make it _easy_ for you."

Hawke opened her mouth, as if to do exactly that, but then shut it just as quickly. She almost told him her intention - to Order him as little as she possibly could, to give him as much of an illusion of free will as possible (given their circumstances and...well...the state of the Gallows and Kirkwall in general). But, then she heard a single toll of the night bells and remembered that time was _not_ on their side.

There would be time enough to sort through the catastrophe the night's actions would leave behind for both of them.

 _Just not now_ , she thought.

Her only response to him, then, was to move above him until his shoulders were between her thighs. Hawke hoped that he couldn't read any hesitancy in her as she took her position over him. She was back to blushing...but she was oddly thankful for his defiant teasing. His touch, his _magic_ , had awakened a desire deep within her that yearned for release. She didn't need to touch herself to know that she was wet between her legs, to a degree that she had never achieved from reading books, or imagining tawdry scenes in her mind. And if he was teasing her, bragging lewdly to her, then he was more than ready, too.

He slid his hands up the length of her legs, from knees to hips, and Hawke reached almost instinctively to fist her fingers into his hair. His hair was still pulled back, however, so instead of threading her fingers through his hair, Hawke skimmed her hand over the top of his head. She stopped when she found the leather thong that held the top layer of his hair out of his face.

“That can’t be comfortable to lay on,” she murmured softly, as she made quick work of the knot and pulled it free.

Anders just grunted something beneath her, but she couldn’t catch it. Before she could ask him to repeat himself, the lean body beneath her wiggled down a few inches, until she felt the first hot flutters of breath against her curls. Hawke sucked in a sudden breath as the hands on her hips followed their curve down. Anders slid both of his thumbs between her lips and pulled her open - her breath hitched again and she reached out her left hand to grip the top of the headboard in front of her.

Hawke was completely unprepared for the way each and every nerve ending in her body flared to life with the first swipe of his tongue against the little hood of flesh that covered her clit. She gave an undignified grunt and the leather thong in her right hand fluttered to the pillow beside Anders’ head as she finally tangled her fingers into his hair. The feel of his tongue was silky and firm, infinitely softer and smoother than the tip of a finger. There was no uncomfortable friction of dry skin to dry skin - just instant heat and slickness.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Hawke gasped as Anders slipped his tongue beneath her hood and applied direct pressure on the little bead of nerves she had always been too nervous to fully explore herself.

She knew from passing touches that having her clit rubbed would feel _good_ , but _nothing_ prepared her for the unadulterated _pleasure_ that was being masterfully stroked to life within her. No book, no Templar’s crass bragging, no amount of imagination, could compare to _this_. Hawke’s mouth fell open as her head fell back and she filled the quiet room with the sounds of hedonistic wickedness - gasps, moans, curses, all in time with the sure strokes of Anders’ tongue.

He moved his face and the stubble on his cheeks scraped against the sensitive skin on the inside of both her thighs. Hawke squeaked and involuntarily shifted away, but the mage just pulled his thumbs away from her, reached up, and grabbed her hips. He didn’t just hold her in place, either - he pulled her down _on top of his open mouth_. He moved his tongue, too, away from her clit and she would have whimpered from the loss of it, except that as he pulled her down, he _speared_ her with it.

“Maker’s breath…!” Hawke swore; she tore her hand away from his hair and slapped her hand against the cold stones just above the headboard, in order to steady herself.

 _Anders was fucking her with his tongue_. Sharp in, languid out. Curling, thrusting, tasting...Hawke was fairly certain the apostate wasn’t holding anything back. She was so _wet_ , between the moisture of his mouth and the pleasure he was wringing out of her with said mouth. His clever, talented, _wicked_ mouth. Then...and _then_...he titled his chin beneath her just so, and the hard, unforgiving ridge of his nose bumped up against her clit. Hawke couldn’t help the animal sound that all but _fell_ out of her. His _nose_ \- her brain wouldn’t have been able to wrap around the idea, if it hadn’t been happening to her. It rubbed slowly against her as his tongue moved, which provided a different sort of texture, a different sort of pressure, against her. The hard ridge of bone was a sensory contrast to the supple slickness of his tongue and Hawke started moving her hips in time with his own movements of mouth and nose.

She’d always found it rather crass when she’d heard or read the position described as “riding his face”. But, Maker be damned if that’s not _exactly_ how she was moving, her rolling of hips not at all dissimilar to the movements she made in a saddle. And she _didn’t care one whit_ how that might look, or how she might be embarrassed later when she thought back to this moment. All that mattered to her, right here, right now, was that Anders never stop the sin he was dragging her down into...

He thrust into her one last time, then dragged his tongue back to her clit. Hawke’s head lolled forward and she opened unfocused eyes to gaze hazily down at him. His eyes were closed at first, but he seemed to sense her looking at him. Anders opened his own eyes and the smoldering look he gave her was not hard to decipher. She could hear his voice in her head -

_Do you like what this apostate can do to you, Templar?_

Hawke just moaned in reply, the sound of it high, and breathy, and desperate. She didn’t care if enjoying this made her a wanton whore - how could she not? Anders did, in fact, know what to do with his mouth, and _it was glorious_.

This couldn’t be the only time he did this to her. She wouldn’t allow it. _Couldn’t_. It was just too good, too _decadent_. If this indescribable pleasure was what a man could do to her with just his _tongue_ and his _nose_ , then she would never be able to find true satisfaction by her own hand. And if Anders could do _this_...then what other pleasures could he offer her?

The man was a _master_ of his craft - precise, confident, experienced, relentless. Hawke didn’t need to lose her virginity to know that she was in the hands of a man with considerable talents.

And then... _and then_...he wrapped his lips around her little nub of nerves and _sucked_. Hawke tossed her head back a second time, her eyes slamming shut with the sheer _bliss_ created by the sudden pressure. There was tongue, and lips, and a little graze of teeth...and the Templar felt herself hovering on the edge of an invisible precipice. She was so _close_...just _a little bit more_ …

Anders started a pulsing sort of suckle and that was all Hawke could take. She _screamed_ \- short and sharp, but a scream all the same. The walls were stone and chances were quite high that no one would hear her...but even if a passing watchman heard her through the door, she _didn’t care_. Didn’t even think about it. All she could see, all she could feel, was a bright explosion of light within her, a swift un-making of herself. She _shattered_ and for several long seconds, she couldn’t even _breathe_ , the orgasm was so sharp and strong.

When she came back to her body, it felt too heavy to move. Slowly, so very slowly, she became aware of his tongue lapping at her opening again. He cleaned away her release with a willingness she would found surprising, if she’d been able to think beyond just how good it felt to have his mouth off of her clit, but still _on_ her. She just sat above Anders’ face and _panted,_  too winded, too stunned, to move.

Then, _he_ moved her.

Before Hawke could quite make out what was happening, her balance was abruptly thrown and she found herself falling backwards across the spacious bed. Anders surged up from beneath her and the next thing she knew, she had a long, hard, sinewy body pressing full against hers. Hawke had her head tossed back, her throat open to the hot mouth that descended upon it with an accompanying growl.

Teeth nipped all the way down her throat, followed immediately by the soothing glide of his tongue. Down, down, down the column of her neck, to her collarbones, then even further down. He sharply sucked a nipple in between his teeth and Hawke’s back arched up off of the bed as she cried out in surprise mixed with yet more unexpected pleasure.

He was just teasing her, though. As quickly as he nipped at her breast, he had let her go and was moving away. Confused and alarmed by the sudden loss of his pressure and heat, Hawke opened her eyes and lifted her head. For a second, she just stared as his fingers tore open the laces of his pants.

He...wasn’t wearing any smalls underneath. Hawke felt her mouth open in surprise _yet_ again, at the size of him. She had absolutely nothing to compare him to - not in person or in experience, anyway - but he looked thick. Long, too, but that seemed in proportion to his lanky frame. His girth, however… But, then, it didn’t look so out of place, when he wrapped his hand around it and pulled it fully out of the parted opening of his pants.

Her eyes danced up over his torso. Anders was malnourished - most apostates on the run were, as money for food was hard to come by, and most were too principled to steal or too inexperienced to hunt (much less cook). But, there was strength in his arms and a promising breadth in his shoulders. He was lean...but some solid, regular meals and daily exercise would fill him out quickly enough, to the point where he could be more sleek than thin, and more imposing in his full power.

Power…

Anders let go of his cock and surged forward...and Meredith’s warning worked like cold water over Hawke’s pleasure-fuddled brain.

“ _Knowledge of your chastity is power. Don’t give it to him_.”

She flinched and threw out her hand, which connected sharply with his chest.

“Stop!” Hawke didn’t meant to Order him, but it came out that way all the same - hard and fast, like the orders she would give when commanding junior Templars.

The word pulled Anders up short with a grunt. He reeled back on his knees, until he was sitting on his ankles. No sooner had her Command left her lips, than he was reaching up toward his collar with a grunt and a grimace. The accusing heat of his gaze scorched her and Hawke felt herself flushing...not with virginal bashfulness, but with  _shame_.

His words just made it worse, as he growled them out in the sudden, heavy silence between them. He finally said her name - spit it out like a curse, like it sickened him to say it.

“So...good enough to Claim, but not good enough to fuck. Is that the way it’s going to be then, _Hawke_?”


	6. The Claiming: 6 - Anders (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Masturbation, Cum marking, Mild voyeurism, Mild exhibitionism, female gaze.

_"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."_

**Sarah Dessen,** **The Truth About Forever**

* * *

 

It had taken her two hours, but there it finally was - her first true Order. When Hawke had cried out, the response in Anders had been immediate. The collar tightened in warning around his neck - not enough to choke him, but just enough to warn him that if he pushed past her Order, then it _would_ strangle the air out of him. The abrupt pressure against his throat was _almost_ enough to pull Justice out of his strange slumber - but only almost. Without the boost of a lyrium draught, Anders’ mana was still too depleted to give Justice any ability to break through his own material self and soul.

His cock throbbed between his parted thighs and he imagined the Claiming potion had something to do with Justice’s inability to manifest as well. He was utterly abandoned, absolutely defenseless - he had no power against the naked, wide-eyed Templar sprawled out on the bed in front of him.

Naked… Anders’ eyes fell on her long, powerful legs and attractively muscled torso. So much pale, freckled skin on wanton display. He still had the taste of her on his tongue, was still wet around his lips. The mage reached up and swiped the back of a hand across his mouth, the gesture accompanied by a low growl of discontent.

The insatiable, animal fog that had taken over his mind was beginning to lift. His body didn’t feel so hot, so tight, so _hard_ any more. There had been a strange satisfaction in making her come, in tasting her break open above him. Anders didn’t usually lick a woman past her orgasm, but he’d been _compelled_ to do so with her, to take all of her in, to savor every second. He’d lapped her up like a man dying of thirst...and to his _extreme_ discomfort, he didn’t quite know how to feel about that utter loss of control.

Her Order resonated through his very _bones_ , though, and it, more than anything else, served to pull his rational mind out of lust. Between feeling her single word shoot through him like a physical shock of electricity, and the dark threat of the tightening collar, Anders was far closer to feeling like his usual self, than he had been five minutes before.

And yet...he still wanted her. His cock was still hard, his balls still heavy, and his traitorous eyes couldn’t get enough of her alluring combination of muscles and curves. The realization - that he still wanted her, even with the Claiming draught’s grip on him waning rapidly - welled up inside of him and mixed with equal parts shame and indignation. He had _never_ been rejected sexually, had _never_ been told to stop (at least, not in a tone that actually _meant_ it), had never had someone try to push him away. Anders had never even _flirted_ with the idea of trying to bring an unwilling, or hesitant, participant to his bed, so anyone he’d ever had in the past, had been chosen with consideration to their own feelings of desire. There had never _been_ a reason for a sexual partner to tell him no, to tell him to stop.

That Hawke _had_...left him struggling with an unexpected feeling of _rejection_. His response to her Command was pithy and sharp - absolutely intended to deepen the blush on her cheeks and to make her break eye contact with him. And yet...his words also reflected his understanding of the situation. She had bound him to her  _for life_...he had lain beneath her, buried his face in her cunt, and made her scream the Maker’s name while _thoroughly_ enjoying every single thing he’d done to make her crumble...and yet, she would stop him just short of consummating their unholy union.

The only thing Anders could conclude from that, was that he had misinterpreted the way Hawke had looked at him, had misinterpreted the motivation behind her reaching for that gold hoop. She didn’t want him for the pleasure he could give her. She just wanted him for the _power_ she could get _from_ him.

Fear spiked through him at that thought. Would she really make him her whore, then? Not good enough for _her..._ but good enough to toss at other Templars like so much meat? He had heard the rumors of what all too often happened to Claimed mages. Indignities heaped upon humiliations, and treated like so much chattel. Rape, abuse, _torture_... 

Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because Hawke sat up abruptly and reached out toward him. Anders flinched when she touched his bicep, and she paused. But, after a second or two, she slid her hand gently up to his shoulder. He turned his head away from her and that hand just followed, grabbing a hold of his chin and coaxing him to look back at her.

“No, it’s not like that,” not knowing his current thoughts, she responded to his earlier statement, her tone as earnest as her sapphire eyes. “We…” she paused as she searched for the right words. “We just don’t have to rush into anything.”

Anders laughed bitterly.

“Because, going from complete strangers, to my face between your legs, in the span of three or four hours ins’t ‘rushing anything’?”

Hawke just frowned at him and dropped her fingers from where they had been cradling his jaw. The mage took a twisted, almost sadistic pleasure in causing hurt to flash through her eyes. He didn’t want this, didn’t want _any_ of this, and he resented her for it _all_.

He pointedly ignored the carnal part of him that had enjoyed the taste of her, that had delighted in _feasting_ on her, that wanted nothing more than to keep ravishing her until well past the pending summer sunrise. There was something almost _innocent_ about her, that responded to him with an enthusiasm and wonder that he hadn’t ever encountered before. Anders knew himself too well - in different circumstances, he could easily get drunk off of such power, on just the _promise_ of power he could wield over her behind bedroom doors. The fact that she was a Templar just heightened the potential eroticism.

Except...there was a constant weight around his throat. And how much of his response to her was from the Claiming, and how much of it was his? To answer that, he tried taking stock of his present physical condition.

He was softening...but the longing for release still coiled tight within him. A few sure pumps of his fist and he’d be hard again. His balls ached and that urgency only grew the longer he tried not to look at Hawke’s naked body.

But, again...how much of that desire was actually _his_?

Anders decided that he didn’t care. He was simultaneously exhausted and excited. His mind and soul were weary, but his body was wound tighter than a clock spring. There was nothing but excruciating pain waiting for him once the morning bells rung...he might as well chase after what pleasure he could, while he could.

He figured that being beaten by her hand would clear up the matter of his desire for her. Until then...he had lost _everything_ that night. The very least he could do was claim some small scrap of physical relief for himself.

“At least let me finish,” he ground out in the damning silence between them.

Hawke lifted those bright blue eyes to him, her expression startled. As quickly as she met his gaze, she dropped her own to the space between them, to the juncture of his thighs. Anders didn’t wait for her to give him permission - he wrapped his hand around his cock and began to tug and twist.

He didn’t anticipate the reaction his body would have to her watching him. His cock swelled quickly in his hand and he was fully hard in several strokes less than he had expected. She hardly blinked as she watched him, mouth soft and eyes wide. There was an intense interest in those eyes and Anders’ hand moved more roughly when he saw her bite her bottom lip and worry it between her teeth. Without realizing that he was doing it, the apostate parted his knees even further - as far as his undone pants would allow - and straightened his spine so that his body was on display.

He had thought he would feel resentment, even shame, as he jerked off in front of her. But, the _look_ on her face emboldened him, appealed to a baser pride deep within him. He had meant to masturbate quickly, efficiently - the original point was simply to relieve the unresolved tension inside of him. But, just a few strokes in and he was already slowing down his hand, making a show for _her_ benefit.

How much of this was the Claiming...how much of this was _him_?

For now, for this moment, as a raven-haired warrior beauty watched him with avid intent, Anders didn’t give a damn what flipped his intended act of defiance into a sexual performance that made the air around them, between them, as hot as the fire behind them. He turned his thinking brain _off_ and surrendered to the _feelings_ that her eyes, that his hand, brought to life within him.

He alternated the firmness of his grip - two strokes slow and languid, one stroke hard and tight, three more at a pressure and pace somewhere in between, and the whole while, he drank her in. Hawke was definitely more muscular than any woman he’d been with before, her breasts smaller, and her shoulders wider. She was built for speed, for violence, for strength, and for destruction. Anders had _always_ found that combination in women practically irresistible. It didn’t hurt that it was so hard to find - warrior women weren’t exactly the norm in Ferelden, or anywhere else in Thedas, really. He’d never been drawn to bulky, muscular men - the frame had always reminded him too strongly of Templars. But in women, it didn’t evoke the same association. It also didn’t hurt that it wasn’t until Elinor Cousland that he realized that he might actually have a _thing_ for female fighters. The Hero of Ferelden was a beautiful woman by anyone’s estimation, and Anders had fallen hard for her after the first battle they had fought together. There had been something so _sexy_ about the way the Warden Commander had moved with her two blades - as graceful as a dancer and somehow desirable in her dangerousness.

He’d been greatly disappointed to discover that the Hero - _and_ Queen Consort - was hopelessly head-over-heels in love with her King. Anders knew enough of politics to know that just because two rulers were married to each other, affection - much less love - didn’t necessarily have to follow. In the case of the two former Grey Wardens, however...theirs was as much a match of love, as it was of political power.

So, he had nursed his crush silently from afar. Propriety and respect hadn’t stopped him from imagining, however. Though, over the last year, his idle fantasies had turned more generic - less about the specific woman and more about the specific body type and corresponding profession. And here, now, in _this_ bed, embodied in a Templar he’d only met hours before, was all those fantasies made flesh.

He’d felt her strength when she’d broken out of his grip earlier to rise above him, and again when she’d framed his face with those muscular thighs of hers. He had no doubt that watching Hawke work a pell would be down-right _inspiring_ . She was just small enough to have speed on her side, but still thick enough to follow through with a power most enemies wouldn’t expect. She had perfect symmetry, perfect _balance_.

Maker, how he _wanted her_.

He liked to be the dominant partner in a sexual relationship. As a mage, he was expected to be subservient in public - in private, he craved the opposite, craved the little bit of control he could ever have over another. So, it had seemed strange to him, at first, to find himself so intensely attracted to female warriors, to their aura of deadly command and dangerous confidence. He still hadn’t quite figured it out...but an answer to the odd juxtaposition of opposites was starting to reveal itself to him in Hawke. More specifically, the answer began to unfold in the way he started to imagine her, as he rolled his thumb over the head of his cock and smeared precum down the length of him.

 _That long black hair wrapped around his hand as she knelt in front of him, hands folded demurely in her lap as he pushed her down on his cock. A little bit of resistance, a little bit of a struggle, as she adjusted to the unforgiving insistence of his hand. He tested her gag reflex - she definitely had one, and he had to pull out of her mouth to let her cough and catch her breath. He set a slow pace after that, let her figure out how to relax her throat so he could slide as far into her mouth as he could. Once he was certain that she had gotten the hang of deep throating him, he picked up speed until he was relentlessly fucking her face, as shameless in his hedonism as she had been in hers. She_ _was the perfect challenge - all that strength, all that power, all that potential for violence, leashed to his hand, to his whim. It was the ultimate coup - the dominant Templar on her knees in service to the “submissive” mage. The world as it should be…_

Fingers brushed against his nipple and startled him out of his thoughts. He focused his gaze and found that she had sidled up to him while he had been lost to his own internal fantasy. Hawke hesitated when she realized that she had caught his attention and the two considered each other for a moment. Something shifted in Hawke’s eyes and she seemed to have made up her mind about something. As bold as she pleased, she straddled his left thigh and slid her hand up his left arm, from wrist to shoulder. Then, after another few seconds of hesitation, she slipped the hand at his shoulder up into his hair and tucked her naked body against his side. Anders couldn’t help a groan as one breast flattened pleasantly against his chest, and as his hand hit the top of her leg with each downward stroke. She fit against him _perfectly_.

And _then_...her free hand drifted down to cover his pumping fist. Although, “cover” was a relative term - her hands were smaller than his and though he was sure she could grip a sword as masterfully as any male Templar, her fingers still looked delicate against the back of his hand. Anders bit back another, louder groan and fought the urge to remove his hand just long enough to wrap _hers_ around his cock.

“What are you doing?” his voice hitched as he fought for breath - the touch of her body, of her hand, had abruptly pushed his desire near to its breaking point.

“Helping,” Hawke’s own voice was unbearably _innocent_.

Anders couldn’t help a huff of disappointment as she lifted her hand away from his. He almost reached up and grabbed her wrist, almost did exactly as he wanted by bringing her hand back down. But, then her fingers found a gold hoop and _tugged_ gently, experimentally. Anders’ hips jerked sharply and he grunted in both surprise and pleasure. Hawke hesitated, as if shocked by his reaction...and then she did it again, this time pinching his nipple and pulling a little harder, for a little bit longer. The sound that fell out of his Anders’ mouth was _primal_. After a few hard breaths in and out -

“I didn’t ask for help,” his voice cracked again, but this time it was because she had dragged her nails lightly across his chest to tug at his _other_ piercing.

“I wanted to touch you,” she whispered back.

Anders hadn’t known at the time, but getting his nipples pierced had rendered them embarrassingly sensitive after they healed. He’d gotten used to his clothes rubbing over them in the course of day to day life, but he’d always suspected that they would prove a weakness for him in intimate settings. He’d gotten his piercings _just_ before agreeing to let Justice merge with him, so this was actually the first time anyone had played with them. For a woman without magic, Hawke’s light pinches and playful tugs sent what felt for all the world like little electrical shocks down to his groin. His nipples were practically a live wire to his cock - after just a few moments of mostly experimental teasing, fluid coated his palm with each swipe of his hand over his head.

“Why are you doing this, Templar?” he couldn’t stop the movement of his hips and as her touch became bolder, he began to practically rut against her leg.

She was swiftly unraveling him and all she was doing was _touching_ him. Fingers danced from nipple to nipple. Occasionally, she got sidetracked by the spattering of thin hair across the breadth of his chest, and by the trail that thickened the closer it got to his waistline. Her touches were so damn _light_ , like the kisses of a feather drifting over the entire length of his torso. Her other hand rested at the base of his skull, where she played with the short strands of his loosened hair and scraped her nails gently up and down the back of his neck. It was maddening... _she_ was maddening.

“You made me feel good,” was her simple, _maddening_ reply.

Anders tried to laugh, but it just came out as a needy, breathy whine. His fist was a vice around his cock and it was moving faster, up and down, with each stroke.

“This is not…” he made a strangled sort of sound as she started rolling his already tightened nipple between forefinger and thumb. “A...uh…” he licked his lips, his voice rough and low, the struggle to form coherent sentences intensifying the closer he got to his own orgasm. “A relationship of reciprocity.”

She just shrugged and made a little humming sort of noise in the back of her throat. In his current state, Anders couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with him or not, and he supposed it didn’t matter. She didn’t argue the point and that was answer enough.

She didn’t pull away, though, and she didn’t stop dragging moans up out of his chest with each brush of her fingers against his overheated skin. Anders felt his balls begin to tighten and he impulsively threw his free arm around her waist and pulled her firmly against him. Hawke gave a little hiccup of surprise that he should _not_ have thought of as “ _cute_ ”, and her open mouth brushed hot against the shell of his ear. _That_ made his whole body jerk and he groaned against the side of her cheek -

“Fuck.”

How could she do this to him? How could she touch him with such _gentleness_? And why, oh _why_ , did his treacherous body have to respond to her so passionately? He no longer felt compelled by a foreign force to touch her, or desire her, or please her...and yet here he was, accepting her sexual interest in him, pulling her close against him so he could feel the crush of her soft breasts against him, rutting against her leg without any sense of decorum or decency.

 _He was so fucking close_. Just a few more steel-grip pumps of his fist, hard and fast. Just one or two more rolls of his palm over the weeping head of his cock… Hawke panted in his ear and moved eagerly against his body, as if she was trying to ride him again, as if she was responding to the sexual tension building up to critical mass within him.

A single thought gripped his mind as firmly as his fist gripped his cock. Hawke’s lips brushed against the side of his temple and Anders was just aware enough to realize that her neck was fully exposed to him. Everyone in the Gallows would see her mark of Claiming on him - the whole _world_ couldn’t miss that thick, unforgiving collar. She had brought him to that collar, to this bed...but Hawke had also shown unexpected restraint in her treatment of him. She had only given him one Order so far that night, and if Anders was honest with himself, he knew that she had given it without intending it to _be_ an Order. In other words, it had been an instinctive reaction, not a deliberate attempt to subjugate his will.

She had let him test several limits tonight...had even let him use magic, without correcting him once. What was one more boundary pushed? If he couldn’t hide her mark...then it was only fair that she bear one from him.

He opened his mouth and bit down on the soft skin of her neck. Hawke _mewled_ and her whole body bucked against his. That set off a chain reaction neither one of them could stop.

She had been fiddling with one of his gold hoops when he bit her. As he began to suck, _hard_ , her own grip on him tightened in response...and then _twisted,_ painful in its abruptness. Pleasure shot through him in a white-hot flash and his hips snapped once, twice…

Then it was his turn to push and pull his body against hers as his orgasm ripped through him. It hit him so suddenly that he made no attempt to direct his ejaculation. He spilled in several hot, body-wracking spasms, all over her thigh. He dragged some of his cum across his knuckles as he pumped himself a few more times, and rode out the last drop of pleasure.

Only then, when he was completely wrung dry, did he let go of her throat. He had picked a spot high along her neck, just below the curve of her jaw. There was no way it wouldn’t bruise, no way _anyone_ would miss it, since Templar uniforms didn’t include high collars, like many a mage’s robes.

They knelt on the bed for several minutes after, tangled up in each other as they each caught their breath. Anders absently rubbed his knuckles against a clean part of her leg and allowed himself a few moments of smug satisfaction over the biting kiss that was already bruising her skin a vindicating shade of black and blue. There was no way out of his humiliation in a few hours’ time, but at least he’d made sure that she’d taste a bit of embarrassment herself for the next few days. He glanced down to consider her leg and smirked inwardly to himself at the sight of the mess he’d left on her. While no one would know that he’d spilled his seed all over her, the memory of it would bring a vicious sort of pleasure of him every time he thought about it. 

He was Claimed. But, at least he hadn’t just lain back and taken it. He’d managed to defy her and his circumstances, if only just a little.

Of course...the fact was inescapable that she had _allowed_ his defiance…but _that_ was a curiosity to ponder in the days to come. Right now…

Right now she was moving away from him, seemingly unconcerned with the cum drying on her skin - though a blush high along her cheeks gave away at least some of her feelings on the matter. She slipped off of the bed and padded over to where she had lain out her armor, her feet noiseless across the stone floor. She picked up her outer belt and fiddled with it for a second, before she set it back down, turned around, and made her way back to him. Anders eyed the small dagger now gripped in her hand - the time had come to complete the ritual.

Hawke stood at the side of the bed and motioned for him to come over to her; the mage stubbornly stayed where he was in the middle of the bed, his knees still parted wide as he rested back on his ankles. He knew he was being petulant, but he didn’t care - Knight-Lieutenant Marion Hawke was going to _work_ for his compliance. She either learned to deal with him as he was, or she Ordered him every waking minute of every single day. The former could, perhaps, in time turn into something amiable - Anders knew the way of life. One could get used to anything and after a time, the painful memory of the Claiming would dull. But, if she resorted to Commanding him at every turn, then there would be no hope for anything even passingly decent between them. The choice, ultimately, would be up to her - as would everything, really, from this point forward. The only question that remained was: what kind of Templar, what manner of _person_ , was Marion Hawke? Her  _true_ character would define the rest of Anders’ life.

Maker, he _hated_ her for this. His fingers curled into fists and he turned his head away from her outstretched hand.

No. She could come to _him_. She could _always_ come to him. He wouldn’t even deign to meet her half-way. This was all her - _all_ of it - and if he had to live with the consequences of her actions, then she bloody well could, too.

He heard her mutter something under her breath, but it wasn’t an Order to move and that was all he cared about. The covers dipped as she climbed back up and he enjoyed the spiteful triumph he felt over her acquiesce. Soon enough, though, she was back in front of him, and the dagger in her hand was pressed against her thumb for the second time that night. Defiance made Anders lift his head and finally look at her. He didn’t drop his gaze as she reached her bloodied thumb out toward his throat and it was Hawke who struggled to meet the accusation in his eyes.

 _Good_ , he thought. _Let her squirm_.

“Do you have a surname?” she asked abruptly and Anders was momentarily caught off guard.

He opened his mouth...then closed it quickly. He _did_ have a surname, but it had been so long since anyone had asked that of him. He realized with a bit of surprise, that he had almost forgotten the fact that once he’d had another name. One given to him by his mother and father - not a nickname bestowed upon him by frustrated instructors and mocking apprentices. When he’d been brought to the Circle at Lake Calenhad so many years before, he’d refused to speak, even to tell anyone his name. He’d clung to the old stories that his father used to tell him before bed - ancient fables from the Anderfels, in which one’s true name held power. He’d given that knowledge, that power, to no one.

He wasn’t about to start now. Anders shook his head slowly - she hadn’t Ordered him to tell the truth, after all.

“‘Of Kinloch Hold’ will do,” was his only, and evasive, answer.

He felt her press her thumb against the runestone that sat at the base of his neck and as she spoke, he felt a strange power flow down through him. It felt sick and sticky, and he swore he could taste blood - _her_ blood - in the back of his throat. It all felt _wrong_ , _evil_ in fact...and there was _nothing_ he could do about it, not while Justice slumbered through the hours he needed him most.

“I, Marion Hawke, Claim you, Anders of Kinloch Hold. You are no longer an apostate, and bound to me, you need not fear the Chantry or the Order ever again.”

She removed her thumb, Anders felt the runestone _pulse_ , and the power of the binding oath made him shudder. Something _else_ came alive inside of him and he wondered just how much _otherness_ he could hold within himself. First the Taint, then Justice, now _this_. He didn’t have a name for this new feeling, but it wasn’t too dissimilar to how he had felt after Justice had taken up residence within him. It was an awareness, of sorts, of someone else...of _Hawke_ , as if a piece of her soul, her consciousness, was now inside of him. It wasn’t very strong, though, and he was sure that if by some horrible fluke of fate darkspawn crossed his path, the Taint would drown out that new awareness. Justice certainly could, wheneverhe finally made his appearance.

“It’s done,” Hawke’s soft voice brought him out of his internal musing and Anders met her solemn gaze.

She didn’t gloat, she didn’t boast, she didn’t even look like she was particularly proud of what she’d done. Mostly, the naked woman in front of him looked exhausted, as if she’d spent the last of her stamina in concluding the Rite. Anders lifted a sandy-blond eyebrow at her.

“What, no Commands?”

Hawke shook her head and Anders forced himself to ignore the fetching way her long hair moved across her breasts in time with her movements.

“There will be time enough to discuss those.”

Anders swore softly. He didn’t want to discuss _anything_ with her - least of all the conditions of his enslavement. Why did she insist on treating him like...like...well, like an actual person?

“We should go to sleep,” she broke their gaze and pulled her legs out from underneath her, so she was no longer kneeling on the bed.

She sat down, her legs outstretched, and scooted off of the bed. Hawke then began to pull the covers back from the pillows, and revealed the clean white sheets beneath them. She said nothing more to him, as she began to move about. She picked up her clothes and draped them carefully over the back of the old armchair beside the fire. Then she went to investigate the door directly across from the side of the bed that she was apparently reserving for him - the side closest to the room’s slit of a window, furthest from the only apparent exit. The door Hawke opened revealed a tiny washroom - it was practically a closet, with just enough space to step down into the medium-sized basin recessed into the floor. Anders glimpsed a high shelf on the far back wall and he watched with mild curiosity as the Templar grabbed a neatly folded cloth and then backed out of the washroom. There was a stand beside the door, with a pitcher of water and what looked for all the world like a metal bucket set into an open ring in the center of said stand.

She started to clean her leg and Anders finally tore his gaze away from her. Somewhere, he heard two bells chime and he realized that they only had a handful of hours left in which to sleep. He wrinkled his nose as he ran that thought back through his mind - _they_. He resentfully eyed the half of the bed that was waiting to be turned down. There was truly no where else to sleep and he had Hawke figured out well enough already to know that she wasn’t going to even entertain the idea of him sleeping on the unforgiving granite block floor.

They had to share a _bed_. Anders hoped that this wasn’t going to be a permanent arrangement - she didn’t act like most any other Templar he’d met, so he figured that chances were good that she’d shuffle him off to the mage’s quarters on the morrow and be done with him. Yet...even a benign fate like that made his chest constrict, made him feel like he was going to choke on his own breath.

He’d been a _free_ man. And now…

Now he was everything he’d never wanted to be, chained to a Templar until he died. The only fate possibly worse was that of being made Tranquil. But, at least if he were Tranquil, he wouldn’t have to _feel_ , wouldn’t have to wrestle with his emotions, wouldn’t have to dread the thought of falling asleep beside the woman who had stolen his freedom right out from beneath him.

There was nothing he could do about any of it, though...and truthfully, the mage was starting to find it hard to keep his eyes open. He was utterly drained - physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sexually. Sleep would be hard for him to find in the next few days - he’d been whipped enough before to know how the pain and discomfort would make even the simplest things difficult.

 _Might as well get it while I can_ , he lay back briefly on top of the covers, just long enough to finally pull his pants off. Once those had hit the floor beside him, Anders reached for the covers on top of the bed’s second pillow and pulled them down just far enough for him to slip beneath them. Hawke had apparently finished cleaning his cum off of her, as the bed dipped beside him with the weight of her body. She was still for a moment and Anders could almost _feel_ her trying to reach for something to say.

He didn’t want to hear it, any of it. He rolled over on his side, his back to her and thankfully, she got the hint. The last thing Anders heard was Hawke’s heavy sigh and the last thing he felt was her settling beneath the sheets beside him. From that point forward until dawn, he dreamed of Karl, the Warden Commander, and freer days.


	7. The Aftermath: 1 - Hawke

_"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."_

**Robert A. Heinlein,** **Stranger In A Strange Land**

* * *

 

Hawke woke up groggy and confused. She peered blearily up at the faded blue canopy above her and couldn't figure out where it had come from. She _should_ be looking up at wooden boards, at the bottom of Jetta's top bunk. There was movement beside her and she yelped in alarm. The young Templar bolted straight up in the bed and instantly turned a brilliant shade of crimson as cool morning air puckered her naked nipples. Her mortification only deepened as her wide eyes met a sleepy brown gaze that looked up at her in mutual confusion.

Hawke clutched the sheets to her bare chest when those amber-colored eyes drifted down over her body. Reality punched her hard in the gut, as everything fell into place. She woke up to a blue canopy above her, because she's been given a new room all her own, to share with no one else other than the apostate she had Claimed. Said apostate was none other than Anders of Kinloch Hold, who held the distinction of being the only mage alive in all of Thedas who had fled the Circle of Magi not once or twice, but _seven_ times total. She'd survived an attack that had killed everyone in her squad - which included Templars twice her age, with twice her experience - and Knight-Commander Meredith had rewarded her sheer _luck_ by allowing her to Claim one of the most infamous mages in the known world.

Hawke's blush deepened as the memory of the Rite flashed swiftly through her still sleep-muddled mind. Anders had worked her over masterfully...so much so that she knew, to her great chagrin, that she would gladly let him eat her out again. Then she had watched him bring himself to his own climax and the memory of it sent a flash of heat straight through her. The two of them might never learn to stand each other...but at least as far as Hawke was concerned, they didn't seem to have any problem with each other _sexually._

Well...besides the fact that the only thing that kept Anders' Claiming from being _technically_ classified as rape was that he'd made a choice - and given the circumstances, his 'consent' was dubious at best.  That...and her nearly compulsive need to keep him from finding out that he was the first and only person to ever touch her intimately...which only  _further_ imbalanced the power between them...

Blessedly oblivious to her thoughts, he stretched out beneath the covers with a yawn and Hawke's gaze was immediately riveted to the one gold hoop that peeked out beneath the shifting sheets. He then reached up, scrubbed both hands over his face with a groan, and pushed his unbound, shoulder-length hair out of his eyes.

Hawke finally realized that it was silly of her to grip the sheets to her naked body - Anders had seen everything, after all. And since she had no intention of banishing him to the mage's quarters, she knew he'd see it all every day, anyway. There was nothing to hide from him - physically, anyway - so she might as well get used to living her life like normal around him. She figured doing so might also help the two of them adjust more quickly to a life with each other. Constant contact in the course of day-to-day business was the only way she could see of breaking down the barriers between them. 

She let the blankets drop to her lap and without any further hesitation, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and slid her feet down to the floor. Hawke could feel Anders watching her and she silently resigned herself to blushing like an idiot around him until she got used to him. She remembered the look in his eyes as he had watched her just hours earlier, when he'd taken his cock in his hand and his heated gaze had slid slowly down her body. She wondered if he looked at her like that now...or if he looked at her with anger and fear, like he had in Meredith's office when she'd lifted the Claiming draught to his lips. Hawke decided that she'd really rather not know which mood Anders was in, so she padded into the tiny washroom without once looking behind her.

Cleanliness was next to godliness in the Chantry and the Order. Every Templar was required to wash at the start of every day - Morning Ablution was a ritual of purity, meant to remind them of their purpose in the world, as agents of the Maker's righteousness and Andraste's light. The daily custom was to clean one's hands, feet, and the areas of the body where sweat and odor had the most tendency to gather. A full bath was required every seventh day and the only exceptions to that was when one was out in the wild chasing down apostates. It wasn’t until Hawke had almost closed the door behind her, that she realized she’d left the only pitcher of water in the room on the stand _outside_ the washroom.

The young Templar huffed in annoyance under her breath - she was definitely off her game that morning. Which was little wonder, considering the events of the last twelve hours, but it still irritated her. She popped her head back out of the washroom and reached around the doorframe to grab the pitcher off of the stand. Her attention was taken, however, by the sight of Anders standing by the bed and pulling his pants on.

He had his back to her and her eyes lingered on the raised scars that criss-crossed from his shoulder blades, all the way down to his waist. He’d only turned his back toward her once the night before, when he walked to the bed while she finished undressing. She’d been so preoccupied by her own thoughts and guilt at the time, and had been so focused on just getting through the Rite, that she hadn’t noticed the obvious. Her heart sank as she realized a grim truth - Anders was no stranger to beatings.

 _Most likely flogged every time he was brought back to the Circle_ , she stifled a sigh. _Before whatever other punishment was doled out to him._ Another thought occurred to her as she retreated back into the washroom before he could turn around and catch her staring. _How old was he the first time he was whipped?_

She didn’t know much about him, now that she thought of it. How old had he been when he was brought to the Circle? How old was he the first time he tried to run away? Why did he persist in running away - _seven times total_ \- until he was finally recruited into the Grey Wardens? Why had he left the Grey Wardens?

Hawke shook her head at that last question. If he’d just stayed with the Wardens, he’d have never risked the chance of Claiming. This could have never happened to him - to _her_. _Maker’s breath_ , the Hero of Ferelden had _saved_ him, in a way that absolutely no one else in Thedas  _could_. As she washed her face, the young Templar wondered what Queen Elinor would think of Anders and the poor way he had repaid her. _That_ story every Templar in Ferelden knew - how Knight-Lieutenant Rylock had tried to arrest Anders as he stood at the side of the Warden Commander. How Elinor Coulsand had invoked the Right of Conscription, and how King Alistair had refused to take Rylock’s side and blatantly supported his wife’s sly counter-move. How Rylock had mysteriously disappeared a few weeks later in Amaranthine, never to be heard from again.

Most Templars believed Anders had killed Rylock and two others while in pursuit of his phylactery. There were a few who even suspected Queen _Elinor’s_ involvement in the Templars’ disappearances. Hawke had never really had an opinion on the matter - she’d never met Rylock, she didn’t hold any real objection to the Warden Commander’s decision, and she’d never imagined that the infamous Anders would one day try to kill _her_.

 _That_ thought made her pause. He had, hadn’t he? The only reason she was alive, was because when he’d pushed out with that blast of magic, she’d been the one closest to the wall out of everyone in her squad. She’d been so startled by his altered appearance, that she hadn’t been ready for what he threw at them. Her one moment of undisciplined surprise had been her salvation - she’d been caught off guard and swept off her feet when the magic shoved her back. Her head had connected sharply with the unforgiving wall directly behind her and she’d lost consciousness for who knew how long. She was willing to bet she’d only been out for ten minutes or so, but it’d been enough for Anders to slaughter the rest of her squad.

She held one foot at a time out over the drain in the recessed basin, and poured the remaining water in the pitcher over them. The night before was the closest she’d come to dying since fleeing Lothering with her family. Hawke had been so focused on getting through the events of the hours after waking up on the Chantry floor, that she hadn’t spared a thought to how close the mage had come to sending her back to the Maker. In the light of morning, with a few hours of sleep to restore her to her better senses, the reality of how _dangerous_ Anders was hit her hard.

The answer came to her, then, sudden and swift. _That_ was why she had felt compelled to Claim him, instead of just letting him go like she did many a mage before him. Even without knowing who he was, she’d seen what lay within him. She’d seen the consequences of his anger and desperation. He was not a maleficar or an abomination, but the spirit within him was hardly benign. It _killed_.

He didn’t deserve Tranquility, because he hadn’t fallen so far as to make deals with demons. But, he hadn’t deserved a second chance, either, not with the blood of Templars - and a Tranquil, one of his own - on his hands. Now knowing who he was, Hawke realized that she’d made the best decision she could under the circumstances. He’d had plenty of second chances - seven, in fact. Eight, if one counted the mercy granted to him by the Warden Commander. That last chance stuck with Hawke the hardest - he had all but thrown Queen Elinor’s faith in him into the metaphorical mud. If the Grey Wardens couldn’t force Anders of Kinloch Hold to leash the spirit within him and abide by certain rules...then he had brought much of this down on himself.

Anders had blood on his hands. It might not have been his own, and it might not have been tied to magic, but it was blood all the same. Most would have killed him for what he’d done, spirit possession notwithstanding. The Claiming didn’t sit right with her and they’d both been maneuvered into a fine pickle, but by the laws of the land, she’d shown the apostate mercy. Void take them both, but _Knight-Commander_ _Meredith_ had shown him mercy. Hawke had been so focused on the possibility that Meredith would have taken Anders away from her and given him to someone else to Claim, but the more sobering truth was that the Knight-Commander would have been well within her rights to have him beheaded instead of whipped.

The trick, though, would be getting _Anders_ to recognize and accept that truth.

Hawke finished drying her feet and stood up with a sigh. She picked up the empty pitcher and considered it for a moment. They didn’t have the time to linger. After almost twenty years as a Templar, her internal clock was impeccable and she hardly needed the bells to tell her what time it was. She’d slept in about thirty minutes, so even a quick breakfast was out of the question. By her estimation, she had about thirty minutes left to get dressed and down to the courtyard by seventh bell. If they were lucky, she _might_ be able to swing by the kitchens and puppy-eye old Garrol into giving her a slice or two of left-over buttered bread.

With that in mind, she opened the washroom door and walked briskly out. Her steps faltered and then stopped, though, as she saw Anders move out of the open doorway across the room from her. A sharp word sprang to her tongue, but then he turned around and moved far enough to the left so that she could see around the corner of the bed. He had a bucket in each hand and he closed the door behind him with a firm kick of his heel. It was the mage’s turn to stop and stare, though, once he looked up and realized she was watching him.

“They, uh, apparently put these outside the doors first thing in the morning,” he lamely lifted one of the buckets higher for her to see. “A recruit come by to collect them and knocked on the door when he saw that w-ah, you, hadn’t used them.”

“Morning Ablution,” Hawke nodded; after an awkward pause, she moved around the bed toward the armchair.

She was acutely aware of her nakedness, especially since Anders didn’t make any attempt whatsoever to be a gentleman and look away. Quite the opposite, in fact. He watched every move she took, his eyes hovering between the level of her breasts and her thighs. It wasn’t desire she saw on his face, though. Hawke was pretty sure it was _contempt_ , and she couldn’t reach her clothes fast enough.

“I’ve already done mine,” she tried not to look too eager as she snatched her pants off of the back of the chair. “You should go take yours while I get dressed.”

“Hmm,” Anders’ mouth flattened into a disapproving line. “Yes, I had forgotten about Ablution. Going to force me back into the daily Chantry routine, I see.”

“I’m going to do my best to not force you into anything you don’t bring down upon your own self,” Hawke surprised even herself with how sharp her tone turned. “But, if I wanted to wake up in the morning next to someone smelling like a wet dog, I’d go find a mabari.”

She was tired and hungry - _never_ a good combination. It also didn’t help that he was showing his ass before she’d taken her morning dose of lyrium. With all of that compounded by the realization that he’d almost _killed_ her, and then mixed with her deeply conflicted feelings about the Claiming, Hawke wasn’t in the mood for his defiance.

Anders sputtered indignantly.

“I don’t smell like a _wet dog_.”

“Says you,” Hawke grumbled as she pulled her pants roughly up over her hips.

All right, maybe he had a point. Comparing him to a mabari was maybe taking it a bit too far. But, still…

“At the very least, you smell like something that crawled out of a Darktown sewer.”

"That’s probably because I _did_ ,” Anders muttered under his breath, but Hawke had sharp ears. As he set one of the buckets down at the foot of the bed and stepped toward the washroom door, he added more loudly, “I’m not a _total_ heathen. I would have washed anyway, without you ordering me about.”

“I think you and I already know quite well what it’s like when I _actually_ ‘Order you about’,” Hawke’s voice deepened as her irritation spiked; Anders shot her a look that would have killed if such a thing was possible.

Hawke took a deep, deep breath.

“I have little interest in completely eradicating your free will, Anders,” she ground out through gritted teeth. “I would appreciate it, that if you accuse me, you at least do so _fairly_.”

He didn’t have a snappy comeback to that. Or, if he did, he finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He just leaned over to grab the bucket he’d set down and stalked toward the washroom with both in hand again.

“How much time do I have?” he paused at the door long enough to glance over his shoulder at her.

“If you’re intending to take a proper wash,” Hawke eyed the second bucket and figured that’s why he’d decided to take it with him; it would, after all, be at least a week, if not two, before he was inclined to fully bathe again. “Then be quick about it. It takes me about ten minutes to get into my armor without help. That’s how long you’ve got.”

He just grunted in response and shouldered his way through the door without another word. Hawke jerked the laces of her binding band a little too roughly and winced when she inadvertently smashed her breasts flat.

“Andraste’s tits,” she swore.

She _really_ needed to get some food and some lyrium into her asap. Because if she didn’t, she might just might throttle Anders the next time he opened his mouth...

* * *

 

She managed the lyrium before seventh bell, but not a stop at the kitchens. It was just as well, Hawke thought, as she marched Anders to his fate. It wasn’t in her nature to eat in front of someone she was responsible for without offering them food as well. She doubted the mage was hungry - she was a mess of nerves herself and she _wasn’t_ going to be on the receiving end of a whip. Anders probably wouldn’t have eaten anything if she had offered it to him and then she’d have felt bad about shoving a snack into her face while she herded him off to public humiliation and suffering.

She felt bad enough, as it was. Lyrium didn’t sit so well on an empty stomach - especially one that was already twisting about from guilt - but at least she didn’t have to add one more indignity to Anders’ morning, no matter how small it would have been. Garrol would have spare bread no matter what time it was when she finally managed to pop her head into the kitchens.

Hawke could be surprisingly single-minded about food (she _loved_ eating - gluttony was definitely a demon she’d have worried about had she been born a mage), but all thoughts of a late breakfast disappeared as they approached a waiting Knight-Commander.

The Templars’ quarters were on the same side of the Gallows as Meredith’s office and she was waiting for them just outside her door. The officer’s gaze swept over Anders as they approached - and stopped abruptly at his chest. He was in his boots and pants, but nothing more. No mantle, no coat, no tunic. It had felt a little awkward walking through the hallways with him naked from the waist up, but given what they were walking _to_ , it hadn’t made any sense to tell him to dress any further than he already had. She had not thought, however, to tell him to remove his piercings - as Meredith’s eyebrows rose sharply toward her hairline, Hawke found herself wondering if they _could_ be removed…

“What sort of foolishness is _that_?” the Knight-Commander’s mouth curled sharply down into a frown.

It was a rhetorical question, surely, but Anders (damn him) still answered.

“The Knight-Lieutenant didn’t seem to mind them,” he muttered, and Hawke prayed to Andraste that her commanding officer didn’t see the way her ears immediately turned to flame.

She thought Meredith would backhand him, but the Knight-Commander just glanced over at her, as if to gauge her reaction to his impudence. Something near the level of her jaw seemed to catch the elder Templar’s eye however, and after what Hawke could have sworn was a startled pause, Meredith just snorted. Hawke puzzled briefly over the shift in tone and expression. She’d seen several others look at her the same way, as they’d made their way down from her new room...

“I dare say,” Meredith’s tone was droll.

That said, the Knight-Commander was abruptly back to business. Hawke had always marveled at the woman’s ability to switch expressions and emotions in the blink of an eye. As the pair stepped into place beside Meredith, the commander leaned toward Hawke and murmured into her ear -

“I would strongly suggest that your first order of business be to break this mage of his insufferable habit of speaking when not spoken to.”

“Yes, serah,” Hawke squeezed Anders’ upper arm hard, silently commanding him to _keep his bloody mouth shut_.

“And Hawke,” Meredith was apparently not done imparting wisdom. “Do take some time to see a healer after all of this.”

The young Templar was now well and truly confused. Anders hadn’t come inside of her - in fact, outside of his tongue there hadn’t been _any_ penetration during the Claiming. As such, there was no need for a tonic to keep her from growing with child...though, she supposed, Meredith had no way of knowing that.

It was Anders’ turn to snort under his breath and Hawke had the sudden, _awful_ realization that he’d _done something_.

 _Maker save me,_ she felt like melting into the stones as she remembered how he’d bit and sucked her neck just before coming.

He’d _marked_ her...

Predictably, Meredith was not amused by Anders’ reaction...even though he held his tongue, for once.

“Twenty-five,” the Knight-Commander snapped.

“...Serah...?” Hawke glanced over at her superior officer, confused yet again.

“Twenty- _five_ lashes, Knight-Lieutenant. You’ll thank me for the lesson later.”

With that, Meredith pivoted smartly on her heel, threw open the door in front of them, and stepped out into a watery morning light that promised a storm by the afternoon. Hawke and Anders followed close behind and she was instantly unsettled by how _quiet_ the courtyard was. The sound of her boots against the flagons bounced around the stone walls and she grimaced inwardly at the awful _noise_ of it. She kept her back straight, however, and her chin held high, as she took Anders by the elbow and steered him through the throng of Templars between them and the courtyard’s uppermost landing. She caught sight of a few brothers and sisters she knew worked the night watches - apparently, Meredith had called for complete attendance.

A veritable _crowd_ was crammed into the courtyard, and along every stair and walkway around the perimeter. Twenty years of discipline and her step _still_ almost faltered as she felt the attention of the entire Gallows focus on her and Anders. Hawke had to remind herself that witnesses to an apostate’s flogging were usually solemn and silent; the intensity of it just seemed particularly exaggerated when _she_ was part of the primary focus. She set her mind firmly on the process of putting one foot smartly in front of the other, as she guided Anders along in front of her.

It seemed to take both an eternity, and no time at all, to reach the upper landing. Meredith didn’t waste any time - the moment that they stopped at the appointed spot, she turned slightly sideways and flung a hand, palm up and out, toward Anders.

“Mages and Templars of Kirkwall, you are called here this morning to witness to crowning achievement of this Circle - the capture of Anders, formerly of Kinloch Hold.”

A loud murmur of surprise rippled through the gathered assembly. First Enchanter Orsino had been waiting for them on the landing and even though he stood opposite her, on the other side of Meredith, Hawke could hear the Elven mage sigh heavily in what she imagined was a deep disappointment. Knight-Captain Cullen was also there, standing to Hawke’s left; he didn’t move a muscle at the dramatic announcement, but she could feel his gaze abruptly bore a hole into the side of her face.

 _And_ _that’s the side Anders marked_ , she thought wryly to herself. _Naturally._

“I am pleased to say that Knight-Lieutenant Hawke -” there was another, lower, murmur of surprise, mainly from the Templars. “Is the one among us who accomplished this. She is also to be recognized as the one who finally brought Ferelden’s most famous apostate back to the righteousness of the Chantry and to the guiding light of the Order, through the Rite of Claiming.”

Hawke was rather surprised when the mention of Anders’ Claiming was met with a ringing  _silence_. No doubt, everyone had seen the distinctive collar around Anders’ throat the moment he’d stepped out of the Gallows, but now Meredith had made it, along with his identity, the center of everyone’s attention.

“However, Templars, it grieves me to tell you that of Knight-Lieutenant Hawke’s squad, only she survives. Before being brought to heel, this mage took the lives of your brothers, Knight-Sergeants Handon, Meckell, Earnan, and Rochester, and the life of your sister, Knight-Lieutenant Bronswell. Their blood is on his hands, and he will pay with blood of his own,” Meredith then turned her head and nodded curtly at Cullen. “Knight-Captain.”

Hawke _finally_ felt Cullen’s gaze move away from her - but only briefly as he nodded in kind back to Meredith. He took a step forward and held out a coiled whip to her; Hawke hesitated only slightly, before taking it from him. Her mouth went suddenly dry as she closed her hand over cool, hardened leather.

“First Enchanter,” Meredith then addressed Orsino, before stepping back from the front of the landing all together.

Both Cullen and Orsino stepped back behind Hawke, but not before Orsino waved a hand and Anders’ bound wrists were abruptly raised above his head. His whole body was drawn taut, until just the tips of his boots were touching the stones beneath them. Hawke had always thought it a bit twisted that the First Enchanter was required to hold another mage in place while they were beaten right in front of him.

She unfurled the whip in her hand and was a little surprised to find that it was quite a bit shorter than she had expected - all the better for her to control, having never done such a thing before. Credit to where it was due, Cullen had become Knight-Captain for many good reasons, not least of which was the way he thought things through. Hawke took a deep breath to steel her nerves, and squared her shoulders in an attempt to push back her overwhelming feeling of guilt. It was then her turn to step behind Anders, so that he was finally front and center on the upper landing.

Hidden behind him, she took the opportunity to turn her face slightly toward Orsino and quietly instruct him to lower Anders just enough so that his feet were flat on the ground. The First Enchanter seemed a little surprised by her request, but he did as he was asked. Hawke couldn’t fathom what Meredith and Cullen would make of her decision, and she found that she didn’t much care what they thought. Having his feet fully under him would give Anders some small amount of control (she hoped) in how he absorbed the blows. He seemed to sense her intention immediately, as he spread his feet shoulder-width apart and settled his weight into his knees, almost as if he were preparing to fight.

At the very least, Hawke figured, giving him a firm footing preserved a tiny scrap of his dignity. It was the least she could do.

She then angled her body to his and pulled her arm back. She pictured the faces of her squad-mates - of the way Earnan used to play stupid little pranks on her, of how Meckell helped her finally perfect her sword form, of when Handon fought-back-to-back with her against a Carta ambush, of what Rochester used to say in her defense when she’d been looked at as nothing more than “the dog lord refugee”. She focused on the memory of coming to in Knight-Lieutenant Bronswell’s blood, on how very, _very_ close she’d come to joining her brothers and sister at the Maker’s side. With those thoughts firmly in place, Hawke swung the whip at the scarred mage, and held nothing back.


	8. The Aftermath: 2 - Anders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Description of violence (non-explicit); Flogging

_"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."_

**Lao Tzu**

* * *

 

Anders’ knees almost buckled under the first blow, but he didn’t cry out. Five lashes in and his skin finally broke; he could feel the first wet, sticky trickle of blood run down the full length of his back. He swallowed a shout on the tenth blow - this was not new pain to him by any means, but no matter how many times he ended up on this end of a whip, it still threatened to break him.

He was twelve the first time he escaped Kinloch Hold - First Enchanter Irvin had intervened on his behalf that one time, insisting that a homesick child six months new to the Circle didn't deserve a lashing. There was no reprieve the second time he was brought back to the Circle in chains - he'd been fourteen the first time he felt a whip cut into his flesh. He had screamed and cried that first time, but afterwards his shame over being broken so easily made him resolve to never give another Templar the satisfaction of his pain. It took him a few floggings more to make good on that private oath, but by the time he was sixteen, he had learned how to suffer in silence.

That didn’t mean that it ever got any easier to bear, the beatings and the abuse. If anything, every time he found himself in this exact situation, his anger and resentment just intensified with each blow of the whip. In fact, by the twelfth lash, Anders found himself fighting an internal struggle he hadn’t anticipated.

He’d never had a spirit of Justice on his side before. In every other beating, he’d endured on his own, and suffered alone. _This_ time, though...each blow seemed to stir Justice into a deeper rage, each fresh wave of knee-buckling, teeth-gritting pain seemed to give the spirit more cause to rise up. In spite of the Claiming, Anders had managed to sleep, and while he wasn’t rejuvenated to his full potential, he had enough restored mana for Justice to _break through_.

The apostate found himself gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut, not against the pain, but against a spirit that cried out within him for _retribution_ , for _vengeance_. He was suddenly, unexpectedly, grateful for Hawke’s consideration - at first, he’d thought her quiet command to Orsino to be absurd, bizarre even. _If she thinks she can win good graces by granting me purchase during a_ flogging _, then she can go fight a broodmother,_ was his exact thought. But, as he struggled to keep Justice from rising up, Anders realized that having firm footing helped him stay grounded.

His fingers twisted, fisted, clenched, spasmed above him; they tried to grasp something solid out of the air, they curled in on themselves so hard that his nails dug into his palm.

There, right there - the pain in his palms that paled in comparison to the agony blossoming across his back - _if he just focused on that inconsequential pain,_ on the pain he gave _himself_...then he could hold Justice back. Anders’ thoughts stuttered and threatened to scatter every time a fresh cut was gouged into his skin, but he held doggedly on to every unspoken word, and forced each and every single one to string together slowly into conscious thought.

He _had_ to keep Justice hidden. The humiliation, indignity, and debasement of the Claiming would be for nothing, if he let the spirit have his way. Meredith, or Cullen, or any number of Templars within sword’s reach, would murder him on the spot if he let the Fade crack his skin and shine out of his eyes. _Anders_ , let alone Justice, wasn’t going to have his last actions on earth forced upon him by Templars. He would _not_ be Claimed, beaten, and then _killed_ out-right, before he had a chance to test the true boundaries of Marion Hawke’s humanity, before he had a chance to see if having a spirit within him somehow altered the effects of the Claiming itself, before he had a chance to _truly make a difference_ in the lives of the very mages who stood and watched him now.

Hawke was at least efficient in the delivery of his punishment. Anders had seen far too many floggings that had been drawn out - Maker be damned, he'd been on the receiving end of such himself. When he was 18, he'd given Knight-Commander Greagoir a bit more sass than was advisable under the circumstances, and ended up having to endure a lecture on the sin of pride that was drawn out over the course of fifteen lashes. There was something infinitely worse about having to wait and wonder when the next blow came. The unpredictability of that particular flogging had left an indelible impression in Anders' memory, one that had encouraged him ever since to hold his tongue once judgment had been passed.

 _This_ beating was a swift one. It was clear by the speed of her blows, and the slight inconsistency of each lash's strength, that Hawke had never whipped someone before. She was almost clumsy in her delivery...but at least she was fast. Justice didn't have a lot of time to fight with his host, before it was all over and Orsino's magical grasp abruptly disappeared from around Anders' wrists. The mage's internal struggle was blessedly brief, but it had also been intense. The loss of the stabilizing magic around his wrists _almost_ gave Justice the opportunity he needed to break free, as the abrupt reintroduction to gravity momentarily diverted Anders' attention away from the enraged spirit within him.

A steel-hard hand grabbed him by his forearm just as his sudden lack of balance threatened to pitch him forward off of the landing. Instead of steadying him, that same hand jerked him back - straight into a cool, and unforgiving, breastplate. There was a ridge down the center that dug into his open wounds and _that_ finally wrestled a strangled gasp of pain out of him.

Justice flared up at the fresh bolt of pain that set his nerves on fire; Anders gritted his teeth and swallowed back a cry of 'no'! He was going to lose this battle against Justice after all. He was going to die here, right now, before...

"Focus," there was a warning edge to Hawke's voice - a hard and unforgiving tone that would suffer no insubordination.

The Claiming collar squeezed his throat - again, not hard enough to choke, but hard enough to get his attention. Anders' eyes flew open as he felt Justice pull sharply back from the Order's compelling magic. All he could do was sway unsteadily on his feet as Hawke pulled away from him. He clenched his jaw and bit back another quiet admission of pain; it was the understatement of all possible understatements, but everything _hurt_. And his struggle with Justice had whittled down his internal reserves of control to nearly nothing. Hawke’s Order was actually a relief - Justice had responded almost immediately to it.  If something else had happened to set the spirit off, the possessed apostate wasn’t sure he’d have been able to hold Justice back any longer.

Anders took a deep breath...and promptly hated himself for thinking, even for a second, that having someone else suppress his will was _a relief_.

And yet...there was the truth of it. _One fucking word_ from Knight-Lieutenant Marion Hawke, and Justice was utterly _tamed_. The _power_ she held over him shook him to his core and for a second, he thought he could taste her blood in the back of his mouth, as he had after swallowing the Claiming draught the night before. That sense of _wrongness_ came back with a vengeance (no pun intended, he thought wryly) and it lingered like the Blight on his senses.

 _That_ comparison pulled him up short. The blood magic used in the Claiming...that felt like the Taint. It made his skin crawl the same way it did when coming into contact with the Darkspawn. The Templar’s power felt like all that was unholy and unjust in the world.

And he _was relieved by it_ , by her intercession. The Calling take him, what was _wrong_ with him?

“Steady, now,” Hawke’s gentle tug at his elbow brought him back to reality and Anders realized that he was shaking.

It was most likely from the blood loss - his entire back felt like one raw, mangled, bloody _mess_ \- but anger, frustration, and a tinge of humiliation also played a part in his knocking knees. He dared to lift his eyes, though, to give Hawke the best glare of defiance he could muster. She just returned his gaze with a level one of her own, seemingly unmoved by the mage’s inherent rebelliousness.

She didn’t lash out him, either; the whip stayed hanging loosely at her side, her free hand stayed tight around his bicep. Anders got the sinking suspicion that he may have actually met his match, for once… And it _galled_ him to discover that it was a fucking _Templar_. Marion Hawke was as unmoved by his defiance and lip, as he was by her rank and station.

It was in moments like this, that Anders strongly suspected the Maker of having a sense of humor that bordered on the sadistic.  

* * *

 

Later, Anders wouldn’t be able to recall the walk back to the infirmary; his memories were overwhelmed by _pain_. Had Meredith said something after Hawke pulled him away from the edge of the landing, or had he just been turned around and marched unceremoniously out of the courtyard? He honestly didn’t know...and he would never really care to find out the truth of those hazy minutes.

All that really mattered, was the memory of how he had _felt_. Of the strange light-headedness that had made him feel oddly detached from his body, and of simultaneously feeling trapped in his skin by unrelenting agony. This wasn't the first time he had felt this way, but it wasn't the sort of thing one ever got _used_ to; the pain washed his reality in hues of blood red and virulent yellow, and every breath, every flutter of his back muscles, rippled through him like fire.

It would never cease to amaze him how _many_ muscles one used just for the simple, instinctual act of _breathing_. Much less walking, or sitting, or laying down…

By the time reality seemed to be a little more recognizable beyond the fog of pain, Anders found himself lying face down on a mattress that had all the stuffing of a wooden slab. A bright light shone to his immediate right and he groaned pathetically as he turned his head away from it. The room was cool, quiet, and beyond the light, a bit dim. There was movement just beyond his peripheral vision, accompanied by the sound of pouring water and clinking glasses.

"Quit hoverin', Hawke. He'll be fine," a particularly thick Starkhaven accent broke the silence.

"I'm not 'hovering', Roan," Hawke replied and it was hard to miss how defensive she sounded.

"As ya’ say," the Starkhaven accent turned amused.

Footsteps moved closer and then stopped; Anders had closed his eyes as soon as he'd had his corneas unceremoniously burned by the light to his right. He had always possessed a vivid imagination, however, and he knew the sounds of a medical ward. Someone had been gathering supplies and was now hovering over him, most likely assessing the damage before cleaning him up.

"Don't ya’ have somewhere to be?" Roan's question had the lilt of a laugh to it.

"Probably," Hawke pushed a heavy sigh out through her teeth. "Just...wanted to make sure he was seen to properly, before I headed out."

"The rumor ‘round the Gallows is that I'm _very_ good at my profession," Roan continued to sound faintly amused.

There was the soft splash and swish of something being dunked into water. Two breaths later, and Anders' whole body convulsed as that something - damp and a little too warm for comfort - began to dab carefully at the broken welts across his shoulders. The mage had known what was coming as soon as he'd heard the clatter of glass vials, but his body still flinched at the sudden  contact. The hand above him stayed steady, and the drag of linen cloth over his wounds was firm. The touch - surely Roan's - was not unkind, however. Anders recognized the touch for what it was: that of a healer’s, not so different from his own.

Magical healing wasn't allowed after an apostate's flogging, just to add insult to injury. The Templars had their own healers, though, who weren't usually half-bad, despite their lack of magic. So, Anders was quite familiar with the aftermath of a beating - a week or two in the infirmary while his back healed and scarred over, and where he was conveniently under the eye of a Templar who had nothing better to do _than_ keep an eagle-eyed watch over him.

The common folk were generally accepting of a Spirit mage - as Anders had learned during his time in Darktown, no one cared who he was, so long as he kept their guts inside of them, kept their children alive, and kept open a sanctuary for those too ill and too poor to be helped anywhere else. Templars, however, were _most_ suspicious of Spirit healers, more than any other mage outside of the maleficar. To be an effective healer, a mage had to keep a closer contact to the Fade than in any other magical discipline. That made them highly suspect in the Order's view of things, as the ones most likely to succumb to demons. Add to that the fact that Spirit mages worked with or on people at their most vulnerable, and the Templars weren't inclined to use a mage healer's skills. So, that was where Templars like Roan came in…

Who, because they couldn't use magic, had to depend on herbal tinctures and such...like the one Roan was clearly using now to clean Anders' back. It wasn't just water the healer was dabbing into the mage's mangled skin, but water mixed with some sort of tincture that _burned_. The mage couldn't help it - he started whimpering and fisting his hand into the bed linens. After a few minutes of Roan's methodical cleaning, Anders was finally forced to turn his face into the pillow beneath him to muffle his moans.

"Easy now," Roan's voice was as deep as his accent was thick, and the combination was surprisingly soothing.

Whatever water-mixture he was using _stung,_ and soothing voice or not, Anders was biting the pillow by the end of it. This was something new. Before, a Templar healer would wash his wounds and bandage him up - no "extras" to speak of, not even an elfroot balm to expedite the healing process. Consequently, Anders was used to battling at least one infection after a beating, if not several, before his back had fully healed. Several of his older scars were thick and gnarled as a result; the point was to make his suffering drag out as long as possible so that maybe, _just maybe_ , he'd think twice before trying to run again.

He never did. Though...this new agony definitely gave him pause in the moment. Justice stirred restlessly inside of him at the thought that this Kirkwall Templar healer apparently took a sadistic pleasure in _torturing_ his mage victims…

"... It's probably the tincture of Prophet's Laurel I put in there," the last half of a sentence broke through Anders' angry fog of pain; his attention was immediately grabbed by the mention of the herb Roan claimed to use. "Stuff's _far_ more potent than elfroot, an’ stings like a sonofabitch for the first few minutes. But, I dinnea ken of _anythin’_ that's better at preventin’ infection."

"He'll be alright, then?"

"Oh, aye, lass. He'll be sore for a few days, but ‘tween the Prophet's Laurel an’ the elfroot salve, he'll be on his feet in no time," Roan paused, as if thinking something over, and then chortled a bit. "Course, it disna hurt that yer clearly not very good at hittin’ things."

"I do just fine with my _sword_ ," Hawke snapped back.

Roan just chuckled some more, but when he spoke again, his tone was oddly serious.

"’Tween you, me, the wall, and yer mage here, I hope that ya’ _never_ get used to hittin’ things - or others, I should more rightly say. At least with anythin’ beyond yer sword."

There was an awkward silence following that and Anders wondered if there was something in the Gallows' water...did he just hear a Templar speak against the practice of whipping a caught apostate? Granted, Roan spoke rather obliquely, but still…! _And_ he was the first Templar healer Anders had _ever_ encountered who apparently didn't let orders from on high, or personal prejudices, prevent him from using the full scope of his skills to ease an apostate's suffering.

"Since ya’ insist on bein' here, though, ya’ might as well be useful," Roan stirred and his tone changed to something far more clinical and brisk.

Strong hands slid beneath Anders' chest, surprising him into another full-body jerk that sent a sharp groan past his lips before he could swallow it back. Those same hands pulled him gently up, the healer talking all the while.

"Hand me that roll o' bandages to yer left, then let 'im lean on ya' for support."

"No," Anders struggled weakly in spite of his pain; letting Hawke take care of him after the injustices he had already endured at her hand was more humiliating than all of Meredith's threats and innuendo.

"Hmmm, no," Roan responded quickly, firmly. "Ya' need to move as little as possible, my friend."

"I'm not your 'friend'," Anders snapped; he finally opened his eyes and glared at the unfamiliar Templar in front of him.

"Ach, give it time. Ya’ will be," Roan actually _winked_ at him.

There was movement behind the mage and he turned his head just enough to catch sight of Hawke's breastplate. There was blood smeared across the sword-and-flames-emblem, _his_ blood. His eyes flickered accusingly from the blood to her face, his lips stretched thin from both disapproval and pain. Hawke, for her part, didn’t look him in the eye as she reached out and put a steadying hand on the ball of his shoulder.

“ _Everyone_ is Roan’s friend,” she said; her expression and tone seemed to suggest that she was trying to use the current thread of conversation to avoid the unspoken argument Anders was spoiling to have.

“Aye,” the healer agreed as he took the bandages that Hawke passed him from under Anders’ arm. “‘Cept for those who don’t deserve to be.”

“And who would _those_ be?” Anders fully expected Roan to say “mages”, but the man was turning out to be a lot like Hawke - which was to say, the exact opposite of what he expected.

“Give that time, too. Ya’ll figure it out fast ‘nuff,” was Roan’s only, and cryptic, reply.

The trio fell silent as the two Templars began to pass the roll of bandages between each other, as they firmly pressed each pass of the cloth against his skin. Anders grunted and grimaced, thankful that the stinging had stopped, but still incredibly sore to even the most feathering of touches. They had wrapped about half of his torso, when Roan stopped and rubbed his temples with a groan.

“Andraste’s tits,” he swore. “I’m an idiot.”

“What?” Hawke and Anders said in unison.

Most people would have looked at each other then, and perhaps even shared a smile, but the two pointedly avoided each other’s gaze. Roan continued on as if he hadn’t notice a thing.

“Go grab that little pot over there on the shelf,” the healer pointed to somewhere behind Anders’ shoulder.

“Uh... _which_ pot, Roan?” Hawke’s tone was dry. “There’s...a lot of little pots and a lot of shelves back there.”

“The little blue pot, the really _round_ an’ squat one. Third shelf down, second set of shelves to the left, closest to the window.”

The bed shifted under Anders as Hawke pushed her knee up off of it. He listened to her armor clatter softly as she shuffled over to the sets of shelves that occupied a part of the room he hadn’t seen yet. Roan’s instructions were apparently good, because it was only a few moments before the bed dipped again, as she settled back down behind him and slightly to his right. Her hand appeared, a small, squat, perfectly round blue pot gripped between her fingers.

“Set it down,” Roan gestured and curious, Anders turned his head just enough to glimpse a sturdy little nightstand beside his bed, right behind Hawke. “We’ll need to unwrap - my apologies,” he gave Anders a sympathetic look; the mage just glowered. “But, ya’ll want that elfroot salve, trust me. The tension’s so thick ‘tween the two of ya’, though, it’s got me all distracted. Plumb forgot, ‘til just now.”

“Right. Blame it on us,” Hawke muttered.

Roan didn’t dignify her dig with an answer. The two of them worked in silence again and Anders quietly endured. Once the bandages were unwrapped and discarded, Roan motioned toward the salve and started to instruct Hawke on how to apply it. Both her and Anders protested _that_ turn of events - or tried to, anyway. Hawke had half a word of protest formed and Anders had only managed to open his mouth, before Roan held his hand up, palm out toward them, with a stern expression on his face that clearly stated that he didn’t have patience for either of them.

“I wouldn’t recommend keepin’ him here in the infirmary. I have other duties that take me away a lot of the time, so he’s safest in _yer_ room, Hawke -”

“That’s absurd -” Anders managed to get out, before Roan fixed him with a baleful eye that shut him _right up_.

“Is it, Anders of Kinloch Hold? There are plenty who won’t be pleased that Hawke was allowed to Claim ya’, and most of the protestors are goin’ to have rank over her, much less _you_.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting that anyone would...mess...with him…?” Hawke sounded as incredulous as Anders felt.

“I am,” Roan folded bulging arms over his equally bulging chest - he was a veritable _bear_ of a man. “Yer gonna’ have to set firm boundaries with a lot o’ the Templars here, serrah. But, ya’ can’t set ‘em, if yer not there to do so - leavin’ him vulnerable in a common space is a good way for boundaries to be _crossed_ ‘fore you even have a chance to put ‘im in place. And,” his stone-gray gaze moved solemnly from Anders to Hawke, then back to Anders. “That’s a quick way to destroy any goodness the two o’ ya’ might ‘ave.”

“What good could _possibly_ come out of this?” Anders dropped his gaze from Roan and snarled angrily at the floor beside them.

“Ya’d be surprised,” Roan’s voice gentled considerably. “I’d say three good things have _already_ come outta yer circumstances.”

Hawke and Anders both snorted. The healer just shook his head with a soft sigh; he held up his hand again and curled his fingers down as he counted the benefits he had suggested might exist.

“For starters, mage, yer not dead, yer not Tranquil, an’ yer not Claimed by an abusive, power-crazy asshole.”

Anders chanced a side-ways glance up at the healer. Roan had a round, honest face, and there wasn’t even a _hint_ of guile or deception in his eyes. The man believed what he was saying - Anders just wasn’t sure that _he_ did.

“Knight-Lieutenant Hawke is a _good_ woman. Spend a day without her in the Gallows, without her protection, an’ ya’ll see that I don’t exaggerate. There are _far_ worse fates than the one ya’ve been dealt.”

Anders had witnessed and experienced more than his fair share of Templar abuses and indignities _before_ the Rite of Claiming was put into effect. The stories had only gotten worse after that. A part of him knew that Roan was right...and the Justice part of him _seethed_ because of it.

“In any event,” Roan switched back to business. “Keep him in your quarters, Hawke, ‘til he’s fully healed - he’s not gonna’ wanna’ move much ‘til then, anyway, so that should be easy for both of ya’ to manage. Ya’ll wanna change his dressings three times a day if ya’ can. If yer out in the afternoon, change ‘em first thing in the mornin’ and last thing at night, for sure. Might as well learn to do it proper now, while I’m here to show ya’.”

It was shortly after that declaration, that Anders found himself reluctantly leaned forward, the front of his right shoulder pressed against Roan’s left shoulder so the healer could keep him steady while Hawke’s inexperienced fingers hesitantly dabbed a slightly oily and viscous ointment across his wounded back. She prodded with indelicate fingers in more places than she should have, earning her a grunt or huff of pain each time. Anders couldn’t help noticing that her touch would gentle considerably after each accidental poke and he finally just abandoned himself to complete confusion.

A Templar healer who _actually_ tended to his wounds, beyond a perfunctory clean and a haphazard binding. A Templar who had Claimed him and beaten him, and yet still flinched each time she accidentally pressed into an open wound.

A Templar who encouraged Hawke to _protect_ him, and who unabashedly reminded Anders that it would be in his best interests to accept, to _submit_ , to said protection. A Templar who _insisted_ on touching him with kindness, never mind that she’d taken a whip to his back just less than an hour before.

And between the two of them, _Justice_ , who was squirming, writhing, coiling, shifting restlessly within him, along the edges of his consciousness and spiritual awareness. Justice...who had insisted quite clearly that he take the Claiming over Hawke’s three offers of a quick death, and yet who had almost gotten him _killed_ by nearly manifesting in front of an entire Circle’s worth of Templars.

 _Why_? Why would Justice do that to him - maneuver him into an _impossible_ choice with life-long repercussions, just to throw it away?

To distract himself from the pain, and from his confusion over how compassionately the two Templars on either side of him were treating him, Anders mulled over the mystery of Justice. The only thing he could conclude was that Justice responded to pain.

Although...that wasn’t quite right, was it? Pain was an everyday part of life and Justice hardly tried to take over every time Anders stubbed his toe. Stress, then? Also, no, since the mage’s very _existence_ was a study on continuous, never-ending stress. So, what, then? Pain _and_ stress, perhaps? Pain, and stress, and humiliation? Fear? Anger? All of the above?

He could think of at least one example of when Justice had responded to an overabundance of fear and/or anger within him. And pain _did_ seem to play a factor - the spirit buzzed irritably along his senses every time Hawke poked him. Was Justice simply unpredictable? He certainly hadn’t been that way when he’d been his own separate entity, possessing the body of a dead Warden…

Hawke _finally_ finished spreading the elfroot salve across his back and Anders was momentarily distracted by her and Roan wrapping him up again. The two were silent as they worked and in that silence, a single word bounced oddly around in Anders’ over active mind: _body_.

Body, body, body… There was something there, perhaps, in relation to Justice. Anders’ thoughts threatened to scatter as Hawke put pressure on his broken skin, but as he had during the beating, the mage forced himself to hold onto each individual thought until he could string it all together into something coherent.

He had begun to suspect, in the last month or so, that Justice responded whenever certain stimuli triggered his body. Anders’ body had certainly reacted to the flogging - he’d broken a sweat while trying to keep his shouts of pain stuffed down deep inside of himself. He’d been shaky, light-headed, bordering on delirius, immediately afterwards. Not to mention, the body was designed to avoid pain, to resist it, to either fight it or flee from it. Was Justice somehow bound to his primal psycho-physical reactions, then? Was the spirit unable to respond in such moments, except as a defense mechanism? Did his physical body take control over Justice in moments of extreme distress? It would make sense, Anders supposed, for his body to reach for its best defense in times of dire need. His natural inclination was to flee, but that had changed with Justice’s advent - fight first, _then_ flee (and only _after_ Anders got the spirit under control).

All of this, of course, boiled down to one question: where did Anders stop and Justice begin?

“All right, I think that’ll do,” Roan’s Starkhaven accent finally managed to scatter Anders’ train of thought.

The mage looked up from where he had been staring, unseeing, at the bottom of the far wall. Roan slowly eased away from him and left him to sit up straight on his own merit. Anders sat quietly for a minute or two as he assessed the current state of his body. He was actually surprised to realize that Hawke - with the healer’s help - had done a very good job in patching him up. The sting from the Prophet’s Laurel had completely faded and even a large part of his pain had been soothed by the elfroot, which was well known and highly sought after for its numbing agents. A dull ache pulsed through his body, but...it was bearable. Far more bearable than what he usually felt after a flogging, that much was certain.

“Go put him to bed, Hawke,” Roan stood up and stretched, an affable smile tilting the corners of his mouth up a manner so surprisingly fetching that Anders forgot to growl at the many layered connotations of putting him “to bed”. “An’ go do whatever it is you do on Sixth Day. If you want, I’ll ask my Amaya to check up on him this afternoon.”

“Amaya?” Hawke echoed blankly.

“Yes,” there was amusement in Roan’s thick voice, as he offered no explanation whatsoever. “Amaya.”

“Um...all right,” Hawke sounded dubious, cautious. “I, uh, don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“Suit yourself,” Roan didn’t push, which Anders found...distinctly un-Templar-like.

That seemed to be the theme of the hour. _Un-Templar-like_.

Hawke took Anders by his right elbow and drew the mage to his unsteady feet. The two started making their way toward the infirmary door; the room was silent until Hawke reached out for the door and Roan turned abruptly toward them.

“Oh, and Hawke?”

Templar and mage paused and looked back at the healer; one set of black eyebrows raised in question, one set of keys nblond eyebrows raised in curiosity. Roan was, if anything, a curious man, particularly to Anders.

“Don’t forget ‘bout those boundaries.”

Hawke was silent and still for several long breaths, before she finally nodded, her expression appropriately solemn - if a bit confused.

“We’ll keep the door locked.”

“A wise decision,” Roan rumbled in approval. “Ya two will have challenges enough, without others interferin’ and unnecessarily... _complicatin’_...matters.”

“Thanks for the advice, Roan.”

Hawke opened the door and she guided Anders out into the cool corridor beyond. As the door swung shut behind them, the mage could have sworn that he heard Roan murmur softly -

“Be good to each other.”

* * *

 

Anders puzzled over the mystery of Roan the Templar healer all the way to th-...to _Hawke’s_ room. Roan spoke like a man who _knew_ things - not academically, either, but through experience.

The infirmary, as it turned out, wasn’t far from the wing reserved for Templars and their Claimed, so Anders didn’t have much time to ruminate. Before he knew it, he was standing next to Hawke’s new bed. He rested his ass against the edge of the bed and tried to bend over to unbuckle his boots.

 _That_ was a mistake.

“Aaaahh!” he hissed - all the elfroot in the world couldn’t dull the spike of pain that shot up his spine and radiated out over his whole back.

And then _Hawke_ was in his view, kneeling on the floor at his feet, her hands reaching for the buckles at the top of his left boot. Anders bit back a protest - he _couldn’t_ take his boots off, so _someone_ had to. Given the circumstances, the only someone he _had_ , was Hawke.

So, he watched silently, as a Templar patiently went down the long length of his boot, undoing every last buckle. His leg freed, she pulled the boot off, and then slid her hands underneath his gray, threadbare pant leg, to curl her fingers around the top of his long sock. That came off next and Anders found himself blushing at the act. It was oddly intimate...he’d _never_ had someone peel him out of his footwear. Not even Karl. Not once.

“What is even up with this?” Hawke seemed uncomfortable as well, as her voice was a little higher than was necessary.

She picked at the dirty white strip of cloth wrapped around the top of his right boot. But, before Anders could answer, she figured it out.

“Oh,” the sound was soft, almost apologetic.

The top buckle had broken ages ago - Anders couldn’t even remember where or when. In order to keep the top of his boot tight (there was nothing worse, or more distracting, than the top of a boot flopping about), he had torn an old tunic up and used strips of it to wrap around his leg in place of the lost buckle. It had a tendency to slide down and shift through the course of a day, but he’d gotten so used to it, he’d frankly forgotten about it.

“We’ll have to get that fixed,” she said softly and Anders groaned.

“Please,” he implored as he lifted his gaze away from her and toward the ceiling - he simply couldn’t bear to watch her any more. “Stop doing... _that_. _This,_ ” he gestured vaguely toward his feet.

There was a long pause, during which Hawke continued to unbuckle his right boot. When she finally spoke, her voice was so soft that Anders almost missed what she said.

“I can’t stop being who I am, any more than you can.”

She grabbed his boot by the heel and tugged it off of his foot. Her hands went back up his pant leg and he couldn’t help a shudder at the way her fingernails scraped gently against his skin, just above the line of his sock.

“Why are you a Templar?” he squeezed his eyes shut with another groan as she rolled his sock down toward his ankle.

“Because I was promised to the Order before I was even born,” she continued to speak in that soft, soft voice. “My father owed a debt.”

“To the Order?” Anders puzzled over that strange tidbit.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “And before you ask, I am the way I am as a Templar, because I swore an oath to my father the day I was taken from home, that I would use my power to protect, to serve, and to save lives.”

“Mage lives?” Anders meant it as a statement, but the words came out as an almost hesitant question.

The sudden silence stretched for several long, aching seconds, before she added -

“Yes. Mages. I seem to be failing that oath in your case, it seems,” a deep, heavy, burdened sigh. “Though, that was not, and _is_ not, my intention.”

“Good intentions pave the way straight to a demon’s embrace,” Anders tonelessly quoted an old, and well-known, mage adage.

“Yes,” Hawke agreed as she stuffed his socks into his boots and stood up. “I know.”

She took a deep breath and then gestured toward his waist.

“Do you want to keep your pants on?”

Anders, grateful (if a bit embarrassed) by the practical change of topic, shook his head after a moment’s careful consideration.

“No. The waistband is...irritating,” he didn’t elaborate, but it was obvious enough what he meant, since his bandages went just below the top hem of his pants.

Hawke nodded in understanding. Anders unlaced the front of his pants and then unceremoniously shoved them down off of his bony hips. Hawke didn’t bat an eyelash as she bent down to pick them up off of the floor, though the mage blushed a bit as he stepped out of the pool of cloth at his feet. He was vaguely gratified to see her own cheeks redden as she lowered and lifted her face right in front of his naked (and blessedly flaccid) cock.

The two didn’t speak as Hawke helped him get settled onto the bed. Once he was lying comfortably on his stomach (or as comfortably as he could given the circumstances), the Templar bustled about for a few minutes as she picked up his pants, draped them over the back of the armchair, and then picked up his boots and moved them to a spot by the door. She fished his balled up socks out of the boots and then seemed to think of something, as she drifted back to pick his pants up again. She held them out in front of her and grimly considered the now-dried blood that had stained and stiffened the back of his trousers.

“You won’t be going anywhere in the next twenty four hours,” Hawke said in the tone of a woman who was merely talking outloud to herself. “I’ll drop these off at the washer’s.”

Anders had propped himself up on his elbows and craned his neck around to watch her, so he took note when she snatched up his ratty old tunic, coat, and mantle.

“Careful with the feathers,” he insisted abruptly - that mantle had cost a fair bit of coin.

Hawke glanced over at him with the ghost of a smile dancing over her full lips.

“You’re not the only mage here who likes feathers. It,” she lifted the mantle in salute. “Will be good in hands.”

With his clothes bundled neatly into the crook of her arm, the Templar turned toward the door.

“I’ll be back at the eighteenth bell, or shortly thereafter,” she paused, her hand on the heavy iron door handle. “Try to rest. If -” she stuttered for a moment, but then rushed doggedly on. “If you have a preference on books, I’ll stop by the mages’ library on my way back this evening.”

Anders considered playing the martyr and refusing her...but he was tired and utterly taken off guard. In his current state, it was just easier to give into her.

“I like journals - magical, historical, I don’t have a preference. Well, I take that back…” he was getting a crick in his neck trying to look at her and he finally turned his head toward the pillow. “I like Brother Genitivi’s work, if there’s any here.”

“We have an excellent library, so I’m sure we do. I’ll take a look.”

With that, the door opened and closed. Anders sighed as he heard her key slide into and then turn the lock. He hurt, body and soul. Justice had quieted down - in fact, the spirit seemed as perplexed by Hawke as Anders was, so for once, his ever-present companion seemed preoccupied. In any event, Justice wasn’t bothering him, or trying to make his life difficult, or _end_ it, so the mage sighed again in quiet gratitude to whatever deity wanted to take the credit.

He closed his eyes…and promptly fell asleep.


	9. The Aftermath: 3 - Hawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Just a certain Templar being a creeper and a shit-ton of Hawke!angst.

_"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,_

_And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."_

**William Shakespeare**

**_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ **

* * *

  


"Ah, Lieutenant Hawke. Congratulations on your Claiming."

Hawke felt the skin on the back of her neck crawl as she turned her head to glance at the fellow Templar addressing her. There were few who genuinely liked the Gallows' newest transfer from Ostwick - Knight Lieutenant Otto Alrik. The man had been in Kirkwall just six months and already he had a reputation for being an enthusiastic supporter of the Rite of Claiming. In fact, rumor had it that he was at the center of a number of unsavory _things_ happening to Claimed mages behind closed doors. Hawke had never gone looking for specifics on what was being done - it was enough for her to know that Claimed mages were being swapped among the Gallows Templars and her imagination could reluctantly fill in the rest…

"I don't really think that's something deserving of celebration," she met the man's startling blue eyes briefly and then turned pointedly away from him.

"Nonsense," an unwelcome hand landed on her shoulder and Hawke felt her spine stiffen in indignation. "You've done all of Thedas a great service."

There was something in Alrik's tone that told Hawke she needed to cut him off at the pass, or he was going to say something to piss her off. She was groggy and hadn't slept well the night before. Sharing a bed with a man she had forced into it, and then beaten bloody the next morning, hadn't set right with her. So, she'd slept in the old armchair by the fire, her feet propped up on the chest she'd brought from the end of her old bunk in the female barracks. Needless to say, falling asleep that way had been less than comfortable and she'd not only slept fitfully, but had woken up with a crick in her neck. To top that off, she'd only _just_ sat down to breakfast and Hawke _hated_ being interrupted right before, or during, eating. Inserting one's self between her and her food was high on her otherwise short list of pet peeves.

"The man was just trying to live free," Hawke pointedly shrugged her shoulder until Alrik lifted his hand.

Her father's face had haunted her all night and at Alrik's words, Malcolm Hawke's bright blue eyes - eyes _she_ had inherited - seemed to bore through her memory. Her father, just like Anders, had only wanted to live free. That was, however, not something she could share to a table full of fellow Templars. The only Templar who had ever known that she was the daughter of an apostate had been Knight-Captain Maurevar Carver, and he'd been dead for seven years…

"I'm not sure I've done _anyone_ a 'great service'," she growled into her oatmeal, as she picked up her spoon and shoved it into the generously sugared beige goop.

"Well," Alrik didn't seem put off by her manner or by her words in the slightest, though his tone hardened. "That might be...but it's quite clear that at least Anders of Kinloch Hold did _you_ a 'great service'."

Hawke couldn't help the blush that flashed hot across her cheeks and she resisted the urge to reach up and slap a hand over the bruise Anders had given her.

 _Shit_!

She'd forgotten to go see a mage healer. In fact, she'd been so preoccupied by her guilt over what she'd done, and by her worry over Anders' well-being, that she'd forgotten all about it.

"Word is that after two decades in Ferelden's Circle, he's quite... _experienced..._ and indiscriminate in his preferences as well," Alrik's voice had lowered to a sick sort of self-satisfied purr. "Would be a nice change of pace for the rest of us. Most mages don't know what to do, until they're taught."

Half the Templars present jumped in their seats as Hawke slammed her hands on the rough wooden tabletop and surged to her feet. She spun neatly on her heel to face Alrik and was smugly surprised to find that he was a few inches _shorter_ than her. She glowered down at him, her eyes practically daggers.

“You make generous assumptions, Ser Alrik,” she hissed.

She had to give him credit - she was an unusually tall woman and when she physically challenged someone, they usually backed down. Alrik didn’t even lean away from her, though his own gaze turned to ice.

“A mage who has defied the natural order of society and become an apostate, has abdicated any rights they might have had within the Circle -”

Hawke cut Alrik off with a sharp wave of her hand.

“So, being an apostate means they can be treated like whores, then? Passed around like trenchers of meat for anyone to pick at?”

The edges of her fellow Templar’s mouth curved up in a nasty smirk.

“Magic should _serve_ man, after all.”

“You’re a disgusting perversion and a dishonor to this Order,” Hawke’s fingernails bit into her palm as she (just barely) resisted the urge to smash Alrik’s nose back into his skull.

“You think you’re all high and mighty, Hawke?” Alrik spit her name out at her like an epitaph. “ _You_ still forced an apostate into your bed, same as the rest of us.”

Hawke tried not to flinch at Alrik’s words - words that she had thought to herself a thousand times already since she had pressed her bloodied thumb to the Claiming collar’s runestone. Her nostrils flared wide as she took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down, as Alrik leaned in toward her. His eyes flickered once more toward the bruise high on her neck and that insufferable smirk returned.

“Clearly you enjoyed yourself,” he met her gaze again, as bold as he pleased; for her part, Hawke desperately tried not to recall how _damn good_ Anders’ tongue had felt against her clit. “We Templars deny ourselves many things to serve in the Order. The least any mage can do, is make this life worth _our_ time.”

He put particular emphasis on the word “our” and just like that, all thought of the pleasure Anders had given her evaporated in a bloom of red fury.

“ _No_ , Alrik,” her arm jerked as she started to raise her fist and then abruptly thought better of it.

_I don’t need to start a fight. I don’t need to start a fight. I don’t need to start a fight…_

“Don’t _ever_ speak of this to me again,” Hawke unclenched her fist and settled for shoving a forefinger into Alrik’s face. “ _I_ Claimed Anders, not the whole bloody Gallows!”

The Knight-Lieutenant sneered at her, but seemed to take the hint. That didn’t stop him from trying to needle her further, though.

“That’s how it’ll be, then, Hawke? Just like Roan and Jetta?”

Hawke frowned at that and tilted her head slightly in confusion. Alrik’s eyes glittered maliciously as he glanced away from her toward at least one of the two he had named.

“Mages will bite the hand that feeds them. Every damn time. You three are _fools_ for going soft on them. Give it time,” Alrik jutted his chin out defiantly as he turned back to Hawke. “You’ll see.”

“Get lost,” Hawke growled and jerked her thumb over her shoulder as she moved to sit back down.

Sensing that his time had passed, the Knight-Lieutenant wisely slunk away. It was only as Hawke turned back to her oatmeal and picked up her spoon, that she realized the _entire_ galley had gone deathly silent - mages and Templars alike. Her neck turned hot from embarrassment, but she looked definitely around at her fellow Templars and predictably, everyone who had been staring at her abruptly returned their attention to their breakfast as soon her eyes passed over them.

“Don’t let Alrik get under your skin,” Jetta piped up from a few seats down the table, to Hawke’s right.

“He’s a stain on our honor,” Hawke answered back waspishly as she shoved her spoon angrily into the cold oatmeal that had congealed into an unappealing mass in her bowl. “Regardless of what one thinks of mages, we Templars are supposed to set a good example. We’re a _holy_ Order...not an armored brothel!”

Jetta chortled, but nodded in agreement.

“Not disagreein’ with you there, Hawke,” the woman’s grey-green eyes wandered lazily over several of the faces between them. “Seems like there’s quite a few Templars in the Gallows lately who have forgotten how to represent the Order properly.”

“Oh, because _you’re_ the paragon of propriety, Jetta,” one of the Templars who had Claimed recently - Jorgan, as Hawke recalled - sneered across the table at the woman in question.

“I just run my mouth,” Jetta replied calmly as she took a bite of eggs.

She chewed for a few minutes and then added blandly -

“Not to mention, my braggin’s been mostly for the benefit of my sister Templars. Nobody talks about what it’s like for _us_ \- I had to figure out the Claimin’ on my own.”

“What could possibly be _that_ different?” Jorgan scoffed; Jetta rolled her eyes.

“For starters, knucklehead, don’t know if you noticed, ‘but my mage is a _woman_ . The difference, in case ya’ forgot such a fact of minor consequence, is that neither o’ us have a _cock_.”

Hawke snorted into her bowl. Jetta was crass...but sometimes, it could be hilarious to hear her say it how it was.

“How does the Claiming even _work_ then?” Jorgan frowned in genuine confusion.

Jetta’s response was as dry as the Hissing Wastes.

“Like I said, I talk ‘bout my Claiming night for the benefit of my sisters. Die, come back as a woman, an’ figure it out then.”

No one laughed except for Hawke. She stopped as abruptly as she had started, but it was hard not to smile at her breakfast - as cold and unappetizing as it was now. After a few minutes of poking at her oatmeal, she gave up and reached for the basket of bread that was between her and Jetta.

“I didn’t know Roan had Claimed anyone,” she said conversationally as she picked up one small round loaf and tore it in half by hand.

“That he has,” Jetta answered around a mouthful of crisp bacon. “Amaya. She’s one of the Senior Enchanters. I think she’s one of the Gallows' few arcanists, actually.”

Hakwe thought for a minute, then frowned.

“I didn’t know any of the Senior Enchanters had run.”

“Before your time,” Jetta shook her head. “By about...two whole days. Surprised everyone that _Roan_ was the one to catch her and Claim her. He’d been one of the most outspoken about the Rite when it was first instituted.

“But, whatever made him change his mind, Roan's treated her well regardless. He won’t let any other Templars around Amaya, _‘specially_ Alrik and his toadies,” Jetta shot a nasty look over at Jorgan, who curled his lip contemptuously at her. “Really protective, that one. Has never let her go and live in the mage quarters again.”

“I’ve heard it said the two _love_ each other,” another of the Gallows female Templars sitting to Hawke’s immediate left - Dian was her name - added a bit wistfully.

Jetta just laughed and shook her head.

“Love doesn’t exist in the Circle - not here, not anywhere. ‘Specially not ‘tween a Templar and a mage.”

“In any event, Amaya doesn’t act like any of the other Claimed mages,” Dian just shrugged, unruffled by her Templar sister’s outright rejection of the more romantic theory concerning Roan's behavior.

“Pretentious bitch,” Jorgan grumbled.

“Why?” Dian leaned forward so she could see Jorgan from around Hawke's breastplate. “Because she doesn’t tremble and cower every time she sees a Templar?”

Jorgan just turned pointedly away from Dian and ignored her. The younger Templar huffed and bumped her fist on the table in frustration as she turned her attention toward Hawke.

“Roan’s a good example, if you don’t mind me saying. Keeps to himself and keeps his private business behind closed doors,” she shot Jetta a disapproving look, who just grinned crookedly and shrugged. “Like Jetta said, he certainly treats Amaya well. She never looks sad, or scared, or distressed.”

“An’ he gets constant grief ‘cause of it,” Jetta’s grin twisted into something almost rueful. “I wouldn’t say he’s on the Knight-Commander’s shit list, but as skilled as he is, he shoulda been made head Healer by now. There was talk of it 'fore he Claimed Amaya. Ole’ Turch has retired since then and Roan hasn’t even been passed over - _no one’s_ been put in the position. Seems Meredith knows Roan is the right man for the job, but won’t promote him outta’ spite.”

“Why not promote someone over him?” Hawke certainly didn’t think such a move was right, but it made sense given the circumstances.

“I heard that she had tried. Rynll flat out _refused_ to be promoted over Roan.”

“You can do that?” Dian marveled out loud.

Jetta shrugged.

“Guess so, ‘cuz Rynll’s the only other permanently assigned Templar healer in the Gallows, an’ he still works like he’s Roan’s apprentice.”

Hawke washed her final bite of bread down with the last of the milk in her short, squat mug. She got to her feet and gathered her bowl (oatmeal mostly untouched) and other dishes, with the intention to drop them off at the kitchen. She didn’t _need_ to do that...but she liked to do it anyway. The way apprentices and recruits were expected to clean up after everyone in the Gallows had made her uncomfortable from the start.

“Hey,” Jetta piped up one last time and Hawke lifted an eyebrow at her in silent acknowledgement. “Whatcha’ plan to do with Anders, anyway?”

“Treat him like a human being, maybe?” Hawke couldn’t help the touch of sarcasm that tinted her tone.

Jetta waved a hand dismissively, as if to say “of course, duh”, and pressed a little harder.

“No, I mean…” she glanced behind her at the tables full of mages arranged between them and the hall’s farthest wall. “Where is he?”

“Were you _there_ yesterday morning?” Hawke shook her head disbelievingly. “Man’s back is in ribbons. He’s convalescing, obviously.”

Jetta nodded, as if pleased with what she’d been told.

“You gonna’ keep him with ya’, then?”

Hawke glanced over at Jorgan, who was watching the conversation unfold with a little _too_ much interest.

“Yes,” her answer was decisive, if not instantaneous. “And if I hear of so much as an untoward _remark_ made in Anders’ general direction, I will have a reckoning,” Hawke directed her next statement to Jorgan, her mouth and words hard. “You be sure to tell Alrik that, Corporal.”

She didn’t wait to see or hear his reaction. The Knight-Lieutenant turned sharply on her heel and marched off toward the kitchen, her back ramrod straight with indignation. With each step she thought, _Damn. Roan was right_.

Well, she had done as the healer had advised - she’d set her boundaries and she couldn’t imagine a way she could have made them any more clear. Anders was permanently off-limits and word of that would spread through the entire Gallows - among Templars and mages alike - before that day’s supper. What would _also_ spread, was her personal position on the treatment of mages.

Hawke didn’t care who knew - it should have been obvious to everyone already that she didn’t see mages as somehow sub-human or beneath her in any way. ( _Well...except for Anders in very specific circumstances… Maker help me, what’s_ wrong _with me? I need to stop thinking about..._ that _!_ ) But, she’d never come straight out and said it - she had never been pushed into vocalizing her beliefs, even so briefly. Hawke didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought of her stances, but...there would be repercussions. There were at least _two_ opinions that mattered, so far as her life as a Templar were concerned - those of Knight-Commander Meredith and Knight-Captain Cullen.

Cullen had been a hard read from the beginning. He wasn’t mean or cruel toward the mages; if anything, he was reserved, almost withdrawn. He was stern, but usually fair. He reminded her a lot of Knight-Commander Greagoir, who she’d met once or twice during her life as a Templar in Ferelden. But, Meredith? _Everyone_ knew Meredith’s opinions, even if she didn’t state them outright. Mages were _definitely_ beneath her...and not even in a remotely playful way.

It was the new foresight into Roan that had Hawke chewing on the inside of her lip in aggravation as she dropped her dishes off with a freckle-faced elven apprentice on kitchen duty. Roan treated his mage with compassion - even _love_ , if Dian’s wistful gossip was true - and his career had stalled. Alrik treated his mage with contempt, as if she were lower in his regard than a Darktown prostitute. The practice of whoring one’s Claimed out to other Templars had started with _him_.

Her duties as a hunter took her out of the Gallows ninety percent of the time; she only ever came back to sleep, eat, wash, train, and occasionally to heal. So, thankfully, Hawke hadn’t ever seen anything untoward, hadn’t even necessarily heard any details, and she didn’t want to, _ever_. As far as she knew, the only ones who _had_ seen anything, were the ones participating in the vile orgies (gang rapes, truthfully) taking place under Command’s very noses. One didn’t need to see a Claiming collar to know which mages were “recovered” apostates. Claimed mages in the Gallows had a tendency to be exactly how Dian had described - sad, scared, and distressed. Hawke had even noticed a few in passing over the last few months, who had visible bruises about the face and neck.

Nothing was done to stop the abuses. In fact, in complete opposite of Roan, Alrik’s career seemed to be doing just fine. He had been recently promoted, in fact. Hawke had observed all of the double-standards and toxicity, but it wasn’t until she’d had to face the reality and repercussions of the Claiming for herself, that she finally began to understand the cost of the Gallows’ unbidden expectations of cruelty, sadism, and terror.

 _There goes my career_ , she sighed heavily to herself as she made her way to the armory to gather up her shield and sword for the day’s patrols.

Knight-Lieutenant was very well the last promotion she’d ever see - so long as Meredith was her commanding officer. Hawke wouldn’t back down from what she knew to be true. She _couldn’t_ change.

Her father’s face, his voice, his smile, haunted her. Her promise to him echoed in her ears.

She _couldn’t_ give in.

Her career be damned. She _wouldn’t_ be like Alrik, like Meredith, like all the rest…

She simply _wouldn’t_.

* * *

 

A day later, her resolve was tested far sooner than she had anticipated.

A strong wind off of the sea blew smoke into Hawke’s eyes and she was thankful for the helmet that hid her watering eyes. Though truthfully, her eyes had been watering long before smoke had started rising from the five pyres in front of her. Watching their bodies catch fire was her final farewell to her squad-mates and Hawke found it harder to bear than she would have expected.

A Templar squad was a tight-knit group. Many squads operated together for years - hers had existed long before she had come along. And yet...they had all accepted her as one of their own. Meckell, Rochester, Earnan, Handon, even Lieutenant Bronswell - they were the only five people she had trusted in Kirkwall, besides Bethany, their mother, and Aveline (and occasionally Carver - it depended greatly on his mood and hers). Hawke had a year's worth of memories for each of her squad-mates - memories that carried a depth of camaraderie that couldn't be explained to or understood by anyone other than another Templar. And now that she had taken on the responsibility of Claiming Anders, she wasn't sure how much she could confide in her fellow brothers-and-sisters-in-arms. She felt remarkably _alone_ , as she watched the flames consume the mortal shells of the people she had called “friend”.

The sense of loneliness wasn’t helped by Templars all around her who snapped smartly to attention, turned about face, and marched out of the Chantry’s back courtyard. As soon as the torch had been set to the last of the pyres, the funeral ceremony had concluded for everyone except for her. As the last remaining member of the squad, it was Hawke’s duty and honor to stand watch until the pyres had burned themselves out. Others could choose to stand with her, but it wasn’t required of them and she didn’t expect anyone else to, either.

So, she was surprised when there was the distinctive clank of metal beside her. Hawke turned her head just enough to catch an unmistakable silhouette settle in next to her. There were few Gallows Templars as tall as Roan, and none as burly. The two stood in surprisingly companionable silence until they were the last two living souls left in the courtyard.

“I’ve done this twice,” he murmured quietly after a few further minutes of quiet.

“Does it get any easier?” Hawke asked numbly from inside of her helmet.

“Ach, no,” the healer shook his head; he had his own helmet on, so she couldn’t see his face, but his tone was enough to convey the depth of his empathy.

“I didn’t expect it to hurt so much,” she admitted miserably. “It didn’t hurt this much when everyone died at Lothering...and I’d been with them longer, you know?”

“Lothering was home,” Roan’s words were gentle. “Ya’ came to Kirkwall as an outsider, as a refugee. Stands to reason the bonds ya’ made here were made faster an’ stronger. An’,” he seemed to think of something after a slight pause. “Ya’ were a Chantry Templar in Lothering, weren’t ya’? Never been part of a Circle before?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a bit different in the Circles,” the healer explained. “An’ in a place like Kirkwall...well,” the big man shrugged, his pauldrons clacking softly with the roll of his shoulders. “It can be dangerous work. Danger, tension, stress - they’re miserable, but misery loves company, an’ that can forge surprisingly strong friendships in a short amount o’ time.”

“Yeah,” Hawke couldn’t help a pathetic sniffle; she almost forgot she was wearing a helmet and nearly reached up to wipe her forearm across her nose. “I suppose so. Doesn’t really matter why it hurts, I guess. Them being gone is reason enough.”

“Just don’t ever forget ‘em, lass. The dead are never gone, ‘til we forget to say their names.”

Movement out of the corner of her eye made Hawke turn her head in the opposite direction. A tall, broad-shouldered form in Chantry robes was crossing the courtyard, heading toward a far back corner. The firelight from the pyres glinted off of red hair and she suddenly realized who it was - Brother Sebastian Vael, who was, incidentally, someone else she would consider as a friend.

She was tempted to call out to him, but there really wasn’t any need. The Chantry brother drew her eye to a _sixth_ pyre, one that hadn’t been lit with the others. Hawke frowned to herself beneath the safe anonymity of her great helm. It was poor form to conduct multiple funerals in a day, unless the ones being commemorated and consigned to the Maker had all died at the same time. Her frown deepened as she peered as best she could through the smoke, fire, and the tiny slits of her helmet. That was _definitely_ a pyre that Sebastian was fussing around. But only five Templars had died that night…

... _And one mage_ , the answer came to her in a rush.

Guilt nipped close at the heels of her realization. She had forgotten about the sixth casualty of that night - Karl Thekla, the Tranquil-turned-mage who had been used as bait to draw Anders out.

Anders…

...Who had killed her squad, had almost killed _her_. Anders, the defiant, unrepentant mage who, by being Claimed by her, had become the first person to ever touch her intimately, the first person to give her a taste of carnal pleasures. Anders, the mage she had bound to herself to for as long they both should live...

Anders, the very thought of whom made her curl her gauntleted fingers into fists alongside her armored thighs. Here, as she stood watch over the consequences of his actions, Hawke finally allowed herself to _be angry_.

He had paid blood for blood, true. But, in the moment, as her grief burned as brightly as her five friends, Hawke wished that Anders would have paid life for life as well. She had fled to Kirkwall with the clothes on her back and what remained of her family. She had left her Chantry, her Templar company assigned to Lothering, her beloved father’s grave, her _home_ ...she had given up an entire _life_ to save her mother, her brother, her sister, and herself. All she had gained in return were the five Templars now dead at the hands of an apostate mage.

Almost immediately, she heard Malcom’s voice inside her head.

 _“Apostates are_ made _, little Hawke. I need you to always remember that. They are made by their circumstances, by their dreams for freedom, for their desire to simply live a life like those without magic, like yours. Be kind to them, whenever you come across them. You don’t know the battles that they have fought, that they have lost - both with themselves and with others. They’ll have done things they regret, have made choices that others would condemn them for. But, as long as they never resort to blood magic, they deserve your protection, not your contempt. Do you understand?_

_“No? That’s all right, then. Just remember what I’ve told you today. And if you can’t, then remember just this one thing: when you meet an apostate, always think of me.”_

The tears that had been threatening to spill over all through the funeral, finally did. Hawke’s chin trembled and if Roan was sharp-eyed enough to see the tears that dropped out from under her helmet and onto her breastplate...well, she didn’t much care at the moment. Her gaze misted over, but she didn’t turn her eyes away from Sebastian, from the dim outline of Karl’s pyre.

“How can I ever face him again, after this?” she finally choked out the one thought that tried its best to drown out her father.

“Eh?” Roan bent slightly and titled his head toward her - it was hard to hear beneath the great helms sometimes and Hawke cleared her throat before trying again.

“How can I ever look at him again, Roan?” she rasped, her voice throaty and choked. “How could I have ever let him _touch_ me?”

“Eh…” the healer clearly struggled to connect the dots, but then he finally did and he straightened up with a soft sigh. “Ah. Anders, you mean?”

Hawke was too overcome with emotion, so she just nodded her head once, twice.

“I dinna ken, Hawke,” Roan’s Starkheaven accent lilted softly over her frayed and jangled nerves. “That’s somethin’ only the two of ya’ can work out.”

“What if I don’t want to?” she choked back a sob as her eyes flickered over to Merrick’s still-burning pyre.

“Ya’ might not wanna...but, if I may make a suggestion?”

After a long pause, she nodded curtly again.

“Ya’ _should_ work yer feelings out. Not on Anders, though. On a pell, maybe. On a few dozen Carta thugs? Void, hunt down a maleficar or two, if that’ll do the trick. But ya’ gotta’ work past what he’s done, if ya’ ever wanna’ sleep in yer own bed ‘gain.”

Hawke’s laugh was a pathetic little garble of mostly tears and phlegm.

“I should just send him to the mage quarters and be done with him.”

“I heard ya’ met Ser Alrik this morning,” Roan said quietly and Hawke had to take a moment to marvel at the efficiency of the Gallows’ gossip grapevine. “So, ya’ know I wasn’t exaggeratin’ the other day, in the infirmary. Ya’ send Anders out from under yer immediate protection, an’ he’ll be dead within the month. Either at the hands o’ Alrik and his lackeys, or from some fool attempt to escape again - an' he's the kind to try, even if ya've Commanded him not to. If sendin’ him outta’ sight an’ outta’ mind is yer solution, then ya’ both woulda been better served by shovin’ yer sword in his guts the moment ya’ two met eye to eye.”

Hawke was quiet for a _very_ long time. So long, in fact, that Bronswell’s pyre was finally starting to wane. When she spoke again, her voice was small against the deepening twilight around them.

“Did you lose anyone, Roan, when Amaya ran?”

She didn’t miss the way the big body next to her jerked back a bit. What she had asked had startled him; if she were to wager a guess, he probably didn’t expect her to know about his Claiming. To her surprise, though, he didn’t comment on her unexpected knowledge.

“Aye,” his accent was thick with emotion and memory. “My brother, in fact.”

Hawke turned her head to peer up at him through her occularium. She hadn’t expected _that_. Her question was incredulous.

“ _Amaya_ killed him?”

Roan’s sigh was laden with old grief.

“Aye. Rory was a hotheaded fool an’...we had different views on mages. He didn’t approve of my relationship with Amaya -”

“Wait,” Hawke blurted out. “You had a relationship with Amaya _before_ the Claiming?”

“Aye,” the healer answered patiently. “For a whole ten years 'fore it, to be precise.”

Hawke just sputtered incoherently, at a total loss for words. Roan was...turning out to be chock _full_ of surprises. Roan took her stunned silence as tacit permission to keep going.

“Rory was a hunter, same as yerself, but worked mostly undercover, by himself. There was no way to know that he’d cross Amaya’s path while she waited for me to find her, but he did. He, of course, was determined to do his duty an' bring her back to the Gallows - Amaya wouldn’t have any of it an' they ended up havin' a scuffle on the stairway 'tween Hightown an' Lowtown. She pushed ‘im, he lost his footin’, an' broke his neck two dozen steps down,” Roan made a low scoffing noise and shook his head. “She didn’t even kill him with magic. It was an accident.”

Hawke chewed on the inside of her lip as she thought over what he said. One phrase stood out her above all the rest, however, and it completely distracted her from the point of Roan’s story.

“She _waited_ for you to _find_ her?”

Roan just chuckled softly.

“As sharp as the bird yer named for, eh? For another time, Hawke.”

She huffed a bit indignantly, but didn’t push. They watched in another lull of silence as Merrick and Rochester’s pyre’s slowly burned themselves out.

“There’s rumors that you love her.”

“Aye, I do. Very much.”

Hawke titled her head in confusion.

“But, she ran from the Circle and killed your _brother_.”

She shuddered at the thought of Anders killing Carver. There would have been no choice, then. For all that she and her younger brother butted heads, for all that they disliked each other, she would have killed the mage for taking Carver's life.

“Aye. An’ I resented her for Rory’s death, even though, truly, there was little love lost ‘tween the two of us.”

“How did you ever put it behind you?” Hawke puzzled.

“With a lot o’ time, a lot o’ discussion, an’ a lot o’ _kindness_. I suppose it was easier in our case, than it will be in yours, though. I was partly to blame for what had happened an’ I couldn’t put the entire burden of responsibility on Amaya.”

Hawke mulled over that for a moment.

“You gonna’ explain that at another time? You being 'partly to blame', that is?”

“Aye,” there was a slight smile to Roan’s voice.

Hawke pushed a deep sigh out through her teeth. Her tears had dried, and her emotions weren’t as raw as they had been a few minutes before, but she could still feel the sharp edge of anger digging into her heart.

“ _Their_ deaths weren’t an accident,” she jerked her chin toward the still-smoking pyres, of which all but two were now mere embers. “Anders killed them, with full intent,” her lip twisted bitterly. “ _I’m_ the accident in this story.”

“Anders was also _defending_ himself. And Thekla too, I imagine,” Roan spoke gently, carefully.

Hawke just harrumphed under her breath. Roan had a point... _to_ a point. She couldn’t tell him about the spirit residing within Anders, couldn’t confess the fear she had felt when those blazing blue eyes had been turned in her direction, narrowed into shining slits with unadulterated fury. A thought came to her, then, a realization of sorts…

Had Anders been defending himself, or had the _spirit_ been defending _him_? Anders, the man as she knew him, had not been present in those furious moments before she lost consciousness. He had been a man possessed... A small detail, an almost-forgotten memory of that night, bubbled up to conscious thought.

He had turned toward them, horror at being discovered etched across his sharp face. Then he had bent over suddenly, hands grasping at his hair, shouting and struggling against something none of the Templars could see. Bronswell had gathered herself to smite him...but she’d been too slow. That struggle with himself had only taken seconds, before he’d risen, eyes afire with righteous fury, skin cracked by the Fade being all but bursting out of him.

It was magic that had thrown them all back - Anders’ magic. But how in control of that had he _truly_ been? How much control did the man actually have over the spirit...and vice versa? How much could she hold him accountable for, after all? She didn’t even know if he _regretted_ killing her squad-mates. She just assumed that...well...that he hadn’t spared another thought about it. But, that _was_ an assumption on her part, and a biased one at that.

 _Anders_  had, however, killed Karl. She’d seen that much. But, thanks to having to wear heavy helmets that muffled her hearing, Hawke had learned long ago to read lips. She’d had a direct line of sight to Karl’s face just before his eyes glazed over, just before Anders had shoved a knife under his ribs. “Thank you,” he had said - had he _asked_ Anders to kill him? Could a Tranquil even feel or emotionally comprehend the horror of their condition enough to ask such a thing?

There was....a lot she didn’t actually know about Anders’ side of things from that ill-fated night. That didn’t stop her from being angry at him, didn’t stop her from feeling like she didn’t want to share a room with him tonight (or for several nights to come, most likely), didn’t stop her from grieving who she had lost. But...it did _temper_ her anger. It gave her _just_ enough breathing room for compassion.

A flurry of movement pulled her attention back toward Karl’s pyre. Several sisters had emerged from the Chantry; one held a flickering torch in her hand. A thought sprang to Hawke’s mind and she grappled with it, _hard_. She didn’t want to be compassionate, didn’t want to think of another’s pain…

But the truth remained: she wasn’t the only one who had lost that night. She got to stand watch over her friends. It was only right…

She didn’t want to, but her father’s voice rang loud and clear:

“ _When you meet an apostate, always think of me.”_

“Ugh,” Hawke made a frustrated little noise in the back of her throat.

“Hmm?” Roan leaned slightly toward her, she just shook her head impatiently and stepped forward toward the little procession currently crossing the courtyard toward the last unlit pyre.

“Brother Sebastian!” she winced as her voice echoed off of the Chantry’s high walls.

Several of the sisters jumped in surprise and even Vael spun around on his heel, his blue eyes wide and startled. His expression of surprise only lasted for a minute or two, though, before he schooled his features and dipped his head respectfully toward her as he moved to meet her half-way across.

“Serrah Hawke?” he searched the impersonal steel visage of her helmet for some confirmation of her identity.

“Yes,” she waved a hand toward the pyre he had just been attending. “Can the Chant be delayed for a little while longer?”

Sebastian frowned, his eyes puzzled, but he slowly nodded.

“It...can be, yes.”

He didn’t ask “why”, but it lingered in his voice all the same. Hawke took a deep breath...and, with vague memories of her father spurring her on, she took the plunge.

“I get to stand vigil over my brothers and sister. Messere Thekla deserves the same from one of his own.”

“First Enchanter Orsino just arrived -” Sebastian began, but Hawke impatiently cut him off.

“There’s one other who should be here,” she insisted, her voice softening ever so slightly. 

“Anders?” Roan rumbled quietly behind her - he had apparently followed out of curiosity, or perhaps out of some prescient instinct.

Hawke just nodded; her anger still had a firm grip on her heart, but her mind, at least, was able to see the rightness of her decision.

“He cared enough about Thekla to sacrifice his own freedom. He should be here, too, to say goodbye to such a friend.”


	10. The Aftermath: 4 - Anders (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only this first part is NSFW; it's not particularly explicit, either. However, if two men in a sexually charged scene wig you out, just skip to first line divider and proceed from there. Can't promise you won't miss anything important, though...
> 
> Tags: M/M (both implied and mildly explicit-ish / affection and sexuality), and oceans of Anders angst.

_“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.”_

****Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper** **

 

* * *

 

Anders spent the day and a half following the flogging in a haze. Mostly, he slept, with the help of a draught he had asked Hawke to get him.

She had surprised him when her only objection to being asked to fetch such a thing was, “can Roan make it?”. When he assured her that yes, any healer worth their salt - mage or not - could make a simple sleeping potion, she said no more about it and returned later that morning with it in hand. _Strictly_ speaking, he didn’t need such a thing, but he didn’t like sleeping on his stomach and the way he looked at it, he’d suffered enough. He wasn’t going to sleep easily without something to take the edge off.

When he wasn’t sleeping, he was trying his best to ignore his feelings. Hawke had brought him the complete works of Brother Genitivi, which would have once sent him over the moon. Given present circumstances and his fugue of constant pain, Anders wasn’t able to muster up any enthusiasm. He also wasn’t able to focus much on reading. During the restless hours when he wasn't asleep, he mostly lay on his stomach and stared toward the room’s sad excuse for a “window”. It was an arrow-slit, really, hardly wide enough to let in the summer light, but just wide enough to let in the summer heat.

During those hours, he tried to settle on an emotion. There were too many clamoring for attention for him to whittle down the throng - anger, humiliation, desperation, fear, grief, shame… By the second morning after his beating, Anders had settled on a listless depression. Food didn’t interest him. Reading didn’t interest him. He didn’t really want to sleep, but it was the only way available to him to avoid the horrific turn his reality had taken. It was the only way to dull the pain, both physical and emotional.

So, he slept. But, dreams only showed him what he didn’t dare face any other way.

* * *

 

The tongue in his mouth was familiar, the taste of it comforting. He had dreamed of this for so long, had lain awake aching for too many nights at the thought of the one who finally shared his bed again. Even when he had taken other partners in the long years of their separation, Anders’ thoughts had never strayed far from the one he’d fallen for so long ago.

“Karl,” he breathed as soon as the lips that had been sliding against his moved sensuously down to the column of his neck.

He ran shaking fingers through his lover’s short hair as Karl’s beard tickled the sensitive skin at the bottom of his throat. He had missed this, missed _him,_ so very much. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he squeezed them shut as sensation and emotion both threatened to overcome him. It had been too long since he had shared his heart.

It was dangerous, dancing so close to what must surely be called love. Why else would they have stayed in contact all these years? The letters that they had exchanged in all that time had been reserved, neither one of them willing to risk anyone reading their true feelings. Yet, even with careful language and seeming composure, the letters from Kirkwall and Kinloch Hold had never wanted for emotion. Even holding back the truth, Anders had always known that Karl missed him deeply, that the slightly older mage had never stopped caring about him. Tonight, Anders was determined to show Karl that his own passion had never waned.

Yet, Karl hadn’t let Anders set the pace. From the moment the door closed behind them, strong hands had taken hold of him and hadn’t yet relinquished their control. Ten years...that’s how long it had been since Anders had felt his fellow mage’s hands map the hard, sharp angles of his body. If he was honest with himself, he was feeling a little selfish in the moment, all too willing to take what Karl was giving him - there would be time for him to return the favor, and soon enough at that.

“You’re all ribs,” Karl murmured with mild disapproval as he ran his hands down Anders’ sides.

“It’s a little hard to make coin as an apostate,” he squirmed beneath the press of Karl’s palms as they passed over his overly-sensitive nipples. “Although,” the word was more of a gasp, as his lover paused to appreciate the new piercings. “The thought of prostitution _was_ tempting, when -”

Anders yelped in surprise as Karl sharply pinched a nipple.

“You’re mine,” his growl was a dark promise of sins shortly to come.

“Maker,” Anders panted helplessly and arched his chest more fully into Karl’s roving grasp. “Always.”

He whined, high in his throat, as Karl lifted one hand away from where those nimble fingers of his had been tugging lightly at one gold hoop. The whine turned into a breathless moan, as his lover’s hand wrapped around the base of his neck. Karl’s touch was heavy more than it was tight, but the threat of ultimate control and total power was enough to make Anders’ whole body shudder into willing, _wanting_ , submission. His lips parted as his breathing became too heavy to contain otherwise and he gripped the sheets beneath them as if to give anchor to his building anticipation.

“You know,” Karl’s tone was so _fucking_ conversational and that fact alone nearly made Anders swoon. “You’ve always been dominant in our bed. Did it ever once occur to you that you were always able to take it, because _I let you_?”

Anders made a rather undignified squeaking sort of noise in response. No, no that thought had _not_ ever occurred to him, and the smirk in Karl’s steel-colored eyes had him dead to rights. He’d always been so damn cocky, so fucking self-assured - or was it self- _absorbed_?

“The truth to you,” Karl’s breath was hot against Anders’ cheek as he leaned into his hand and pressed the younger man deeper into the pillow beneath his head. “Is that you’ve always wanted to _belong_.”

“I’m not a possession,” Anders’ protestation was token at best, but he tried anyway.

His words were further undermined by the shameless way that his hips ground up against Karl’s. So much about him, about Karl, about _them_ had changed in the last decade and the repercussions of their long separation were becoming readily apparent. Karl had _never_ acted like this before...and yet, Anders couldn’t deny the way his body responded to the truth his lover spoke over him.

“No one said you are,” Karl nibbled lightly along the sharp angle of Anders’ jaw. “But, you can’t deny,” his voice was a hot rumble in Anders’ ear. “That you’ve always wanted to be _possessed._ ”

He flushed bright red in a mixture of hot shame and sharp arousal. He’d always been a weak man, driven by his impulses - the first of which was largely cowardice. Given the choice between fight and flight, Anders had always chosen flight. Mages looked up to him for his constant attempts at escape, but the only time it had ever taken, was when a Grey Warden queen had claimed him for her own. “Conscripted” was the word she’d used, but when stripped bare of the formalities, “claiming” was what it had truly been. He’d never be able to tell her how deeply he’d felt a sense of _belonging_ when she’d stood up to the Templars, to her own husband and king, and calmly informed them that he was _one of hers_. She hadn’t asked his permission for it, either. Sure, he’d technically had a choice when he’d been offered the Joining chalice, but it hadn’t really been a choice, had it? Possible death through the Rite of Joining, a certain early death as a Grey Warden in the Deep Roads, or the Templars.

Anders had known the look in Knight-Lieutenant Rylok’s fierce eyes. There had been Tranquility awaiting him at the conclusion of that capture. Death had been preferable to _that_ and Anders hadn’t quibbled over consent when he’d swallowed down the chalice’s darkspawn blood.

“You’ve always been able to control others, but never yourself,” Karl’s voice was as relentless as his hands; he wrestled a gasp out of Anders as he carefully tightened his grip against his throat.

Karl sat up abruptly and the two of them shifted around for a few breathless moments as Anders was pulled to his knees. His lover kept a firm grip on his throat through it all and the pressure of his fingers made Anders harder than he had ever been in his life. Karl positioned himself behind him and pushed his knees between his feet. Once Anders’ thighs were braced on either side of his, Karl opened his legs wide, pulling Anders’ own legs open even wider. That hand at his throat pulled his head back until it rested against a strong, broad shoulder; Karl was slightly shorter than him and the position forced Anders to bow his back slightly, to thrust his hips and chest forward. The position was a wanton display and even though there was no one else to see it, he felt his ears burn in passing embarrassment.

Karl’s voice kept purring in his ear, as his free hand began sliding slow and hard down the length of his exposed torso. Fingers plucked confidently at the laces of his pants and Anders expected them to continue their possessive exploration downward. He was startled, then, when Karl grabbed his hand and shoved it inside of his pants, instead. A commanding hand forced him to take ahold of the throbbing _ache_ between his obscenely parted thighs; Anders whimpered helplessly as Karl tightened his grip and began to pump their fists up and down in hard, unforgiving strokes.

“You’ve always needed someone to guide you.”

Those words, matched with Karl’s actions, nearly undid Anders. He couldn’t deny the truth, though. He had welcomed Justice into him, after all, and had _literally_ been possessed. He had spent two decades in the Circle, had suffered its injustices and had watched others suffer them as well. He’d been angry - so very, _very_ angry - but that anger hadn’t been enough to make him stand up against the oppression. He’d _needed_ Justice, to finally take that step over from hunted to hunter. And even then, he had tried to suppress the spirit, aghast at the way Justice had taken hold of his anger and used it - used _him_ \- to _annihilate_ the Templars and fellow Wardens that had cornered him in that forest glen a year before.

“You’ve always been a coward, Anders,” Karl whispered hotly against the side of his temple. “Always so desperate and needy,” the hand that guided abruptly forced him to let go of his cock and pulled his arm behind his back, held it firmly between them.

Anders panted and squirmed, but he was absolutely helpless to his lover’s relentless onslaught. His legs were spread too far to really hold or control his weight if he tried to escape; with his arm now pinned against his bowed back, he couldn’t even try to sit straight up on his knees without pulling a muscle. He was completely, utterly, at Karl’s mercy...and he fucking _loved_ it.

“You’ve always been so lazy and self-indulgent,” teeth nipped his ear - his pierced one, where he had once threaded a gold loop through his lobe, as he now did through his nipples.

Karl’s hand tightened around his throat again and the next words out of his mouth made Anders’ eyes snap open in horror.

“Your selfishness killed me.”

“N-no,” Anders tried to shake his head, but the hand around his neck just squeezed harder.

Anders began to panic. Karl’s hand was suddenly too tight and he started to see black spots dance dangerously around the edges of his vision. The harder he thrashed against the hard body behind him, the tighter the grip around his throat became. He knew he should calm down, and at least _pretend_ to submit until Karl let go of him, but fear tried to claw its way out of his heaving chest. He was like a rabbit in a snare, prey to his own instinct to flee, even as he strangled himself to death.

“You deserve this,” Karl’s voice turned oddly dispassionate and toneless.

It was the voice of a man made Tranquil. A sob caught in Anders’ throat and he finally forced himself to be still. Tears suddenly streamed down his face and the hand at his throat slid away, the fingers gone limp like those of a man devoid of passion. The weight around his neck remained however - the Claiming collar somehow colder against his skin in the abrupt absence of Karl’s warmth.

Karl had let go of his arm as well, and Anders was able to take back control of his own body. The pressure of Karl’s legs disappeared from between his; the presence behind him grew cold and distant, until it felt like he was the only one left on the bed. Anders fell forward with a mangled moan, his eyes squeezed shut as he tried futilely to hold back the tears, and his arms shook from the sudden effort of holding himself up. Something shifted beneath him and the dream twisted as the comforting presence of Karl was replaced by a body that made his blood burn by its very presence - though, he couldn’t tell if it was desire or disgust that rippled through him.

He knew she was there beneath him, knew it was her calloused hands mapping the ridges and hollows of his muscular forearms, biceps, and shoulders. She was _in_ him, as certain as the Taint and as potent as Justice. One hand drifted down from his shoulder, palm flat against his chest, and as she licked her tongue against his bottom lip, he felt her fingers dance curiously across the long, vertical scar that pulled his flesh tight in a diagonal line from collarbone to pectoral, stopping just short of his armpit. The feel of her tongue surprised him and he gasped; she was quick, _too_ quick it seemed, to claim his opened mouth. He tasted _blood_ as she kissed him and a memory was awakened by her fingers as they danced along the scar left by a sword that should have killed him. He had tasted blood that day and he had _enjoyed_ it, had _reveled_ in it, as Justice took his vengeance on the Wardens who had betrayed him, on the Templars who would have leashed him. Their blood had tasted sweet - so damn sweet, like she did now, her body as open and wanton as her mouth.

He sank into her, his whole body trembling, whether from the feel of her hot and tight around him, or from shame, or from anger, or from sorrow, he couldn’t say. As the Templar below him closed her legs around his waist and dug her fingers into the scars on his back, Anders heard Karl’s voice one last time - dead, toneless, Tranquil.

“You deserve _her_.”

* * *

 

Anders woke up with a startled jerk, which was immediately followed by a half-swallowed shout as the broken skin of his back tightened and pulled over shifting muscles. He rose to his elbows, just to fall face-first into his pillow once the pain had registered. The wool and feathers in said pillow muffled a heart-broken moan. The mage lay still in that position for several minutes; there was no one in the room to see his tears, but he hid them out of sheer habit.

Eventually, the pillow became too hot and besides that, he needed to breathe. Ander turned his head away from the door, toward the late afternoon light streaming in through the arrow-slit. He didn’t rush his misery; the wounded mage watched the sunlight turn pale gold, then bright coral, then soft blue, and finally, rich indigo. Through the gradual unfolding of the sunset, he finally let himself wallow in the dangerous depths of his emotions. Karl’s voice echoed in his mind the entire time…

_“Your selfishness killed me.”_

_“You deserve this.”_

_“You deserve her.”_

Anders had no way to cope with what he was feeling - he honestly didn’t know how. He’d never actually been called a coward, though he’d always known in his heart that he was. Same with selfish. His intentions had always been good...but then, what had he spat at Hawke just a few nights before?

_“Good intentions pave the way straight to a demon’s embrace.”_

He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought. He had wondered, more than once since that massacre in the Ferelden woods, if his anger had morphed Justice into a demon. Every time he thought of that horrific event, he ended up stuffing down the very real fear that he _had_ become an abomination.

And if he _was_ an abomination...then was dream-Karl right? _Did_ he deserve the Claiming and the Templar master who came with it?

 _No_ , he finally decided as the last pale glimmer of the sun faded away into periwinkle twilight. _No. No one deserves this, not for any reason. If I am to be punished for taking in Justice...for...corrupting him...then it is my life that should be forfeit,_ not _my freedom by Claiming, nor my magic by Tranquility._

His thoughts at least forced him to recognize one truth - he _had_ corrupted Justice. They’d both had good intentions - Justice wanted to help Anders, by giving him the internal _push_ he needed to switch from victim to avenger. Anders wanted to help Justice by giving the spirit a body to keep him tethered to the mortal realm, to give the spirit the purpose he had lost by leaving the Fade. But...if his dream had done nothing, it had brought some uncomfortable truths to light.

He _was_ selfish. And his reasons for helping Justice weren’t as noble as he pretended. Some deep, shadowy part of himself had wanted to _use_ the spirit for what he could give him. They could have found another solution; Anders hadn’t needed to sacrifice his autonomy in order to be helpful. It was, as most things in the mage’s life, a choice made in the heat of the moment. He’d been willfully naive, hot-headed, impulsive. He’d just wanted to get _even_...and he’d wanted to use Justice to achieve that end, with no thought to what it might do to _both_ of them.

He’d wanted _power_...and he’d been the mortal, the one in control of the situation. He’d had the _power_ to say “no”, to urge Justice to be patient, to just _wait a minute_ while he, _they_ , searched for another, better, way. But, when he was _really_ honest with himself, as he was now...Anders knew that he’d wanted Justice’s power for his own. He hadn’t wanted to find a way to get Justice another body, hadn’t wanted to give the spirit true agency. Justice was a creature of the _Fade_ \- of another reality all together. Anders should have watched out for him, for _both_ of them. But...the temptation of power had been too much to resist. He’d justified his choice by the fact that he was taking in the power of a _spirit_ , not a demon. But, in the end...was there really any difference? True, blood magic hadn’t been used. Technically, he wasn’t a maleficar, or an abomination.

And yet...the result had been just as horrific. Anders had heard rumors about what had happened in Kinloch Hold during the Blight. Those rumors were on par with what he’d done to those Wardens and Templars in the woods. He’d come to his own senses and in his typical fashion, he had _fled_ , instead of standing his ground and owning what he’d done.

He wasn’t an abomination. But, he _was_ a murderer. Justice whispered that the ends always justified the means...but Anders wasn’t always so certain of that. He had fled, to the one place in Thedas where he thought he could find a touchstone to his past, to a simpler time that, now that he looked back on it, had been a _happier_ time. He ran to Karl, like he had tried to run home as a boy, in search of comfort and stability. In the hope of reclaiming someone who could help him right his mess, who had so often helped him out of his inevitable messes as a younger man. Karl had been his compass, because in the truth of his heart, Anders had always known he was lost.

Dream-Karl might have been wrong about what Anders deserved...but he couldn’t argue with the accusation that he’d lead Karl to his death. Karl was only older than Anders by three years, but it had always been just enough to prove him a little bit wiser than his younger counterpart.

_“No. You don’t understand. I can do more good from inside of the Gallows. Work with me! With me on the inside and you on the outside...think of how many we can get out. How many young mages we can save - young mages who are just like we were.”_

Anders had pushed back with one solitary argument - “ _I need you.”_

_“I’ll meet you. I have missed you, too. Let’s talk this over in person. You know me - I’ve always been a devout Andrastian. Time hasn’t changed that, and even if the Templars here won’t respect anything else, they at least respect that. No one will think twice about me asking to attend evening prayers - it’s my favorite time of the day to go to the Chantry, actually, and everyone knows that. I’ll meet you there, for the last prayers of the day. Tenth bell. I’ll be on the second level, in the alcove on the right.”_

If he had listened to Karl...if he hadn’t pushed back...if he hadn’t been _selfish…_

Anders groaned and slowly pushed himself up off of his stomach. He hissed softly at the pain, but as long as he _expected_ it, he could suffer through it. He’d sooner swallow Hurlock spew than admit it to Roan, but the Templar healer had given Hawke exemplary instructions. His back was _healing_ , and _well_. In previous situations, he’d have a fever by now and moving around had hardly been an option. This time though, he could get to his feet and walk - albeit, _slowly_ , but it was better than not.

His head ached, his face felt sticky from where his tears had dried, and his mouth felt like wool had been shoved against his gums. He wanted to wash his face; maybe the cool water would help pull him out of his internal emotional plummet. At the very least, it would help him feel human again…

Or, at least, as human as he could be anymore.

 _I need to stop thinking like this_ , he told himself for the millionth time.

He couldn’t afford to lose his humanity. It was all he had. He’d opened the free clinic in Darktown so he could keep in constant contact with that part of him, the _good_ part of him. The part of him that had always won him friends and admiration, that had attracted Karl to him, that had (however briefly) wanted to give the Warden Commander the best he had to offer. He _was_ a good person. He _cared_ \- perhaps too deeply, as Karl had once pointed out, but what crime was that? He _healed_ and he _saved_. Surely, he balanced out his misdeeds, his catastrophes, with the lives he pulled back from the brink?

Anders was no longer as devout as Karl, but he was still an Andrastian himself. In the disquiet of his heart, he prayed every day that _something_ good would come from his mistakes.

He made his way gingerly around the bed and over to the washstand. This part was a bit tricky, since he wasn’t quite ready to try bending over just yet, but there was a washcloth hung neatly on a hook on the side of the stand. Anders had just soaked it and pressed it to his face, when he heard the lock click and the door behind him swing open. He stifled a sigh - he wasn’t ready to face Hawke. Not yet.

_I need more time…_

More time to process his emotions. More time to pull himself together. More time to...to what? To come to terms with his imprisonment? To make some decision about how to act toward her? To figure out if he was going to try and run again, before she had a chance to Command him to stay?

He shuddered.

Before she Commanded him to never use magic again?

“Anders,” the deep voice that spoke his name disoriented him for half a second.

He remembered not to move quickly, but he still grimaced as he turned around. The level of his pain was rising; this was about the time Hawke came back to the room, to change his dressing and then pass out in the armchair without two words spoken between them. He was frankly _shocked_ to find Roan standing in the doorway…

...Although “standing” was a bit of an understatement. Roan barely _fit_ in the doorway, his shoulders were so broad. He just sort of... _filled_ the opening. Really, the man was quite impressive and Anders was privately surprised to know that Roan was a healer, and not some sort of Templar bruiser.

“Well, you’re unexpected,” he said stiffly by way of greeting.

Roan didn’t smile. In fact, the man’s grey eyes were unusually somber and Anders felt fear twist in the pit of his stomach.

“Hawke sent me to get ya’,” the healer finally stepped fully into the room.

He headed toward the armchair, where Anders’ tunic lay draped over the back. Roan picked it up in one meaty fist and then beckoned the mage over.

“What does she want?” Anders stubbornly stayed where he was by the washstand; he wasn’t moving a muscle until he knew that Roan hadn’t come to escort him to some sort of Gallows debauchery.

He still didn’t trust Hawke not to hand him over to what amounted to sexual slavery. She had _said_ she wouldn’t...but she had a long way to go before he began to believe any promise that came out of her mouth.

Roan opened his mouth to answer and then seemed to think better of it. _That_ put Anders on edge faster than anything else the over-sized Templar could have done. The mage narrowed his light brown eyes in suspicion.

“Well, I mightta’ gotten ahead o’ myself. Hawke wanted me to ask ya’ if ya’ wanted to...to…” Roan seemed to be at a momentary loss for words. “To say goodbye to yer friend.”

“My friend?” Anders was genuinely confused.

Roan looked genuinely uncomfortable.

“Thekla,” he answered softly.

Anders froze, as his heart plummeted to his ankles. By Chantry custom, funerals were supposed to take place within three days of one’s death...and tomorrow would make it three days. He...hadn’t exactly _forgotten_ about Karl’s pending funeral, but he had, in no way, even _hoped_ to be present for it. So, he had put it out of his mind. Because, if he had dwelt on the thought of Karl’s funeral pyre without the possibility of being there to watch over his one-time-lover one last time… Well, he wasn’t sure what he would have done, but it would have definitely involved a pit of irreversible despair.

But...now that he was being offered that chance...did he want to take it? There was a large part of him that didn’t want to step foot in the Kirkwall Chantry ever again, that didn’t want to see Karl’s branded face ever again, that didn’t want to say one last farewell to the dreams of his youth.

Long ago, he and Karl had sworn that if either of them were ever made Tranquil, the one remaining would kill the other. That pact had been _Karl’s_ idea, point of fact; neither one of them wanted to live a not-life, cut off from their magic, from the gift that made them who they were. That was the one oath Anders had ever honored...and the last thing he wanted was to really _look_ at what he had done.

But, then...he’d just been thinking over his cowardice and his selfishness. Those had both lead him here, had lead to him having to honor Karl’s request, their promise to each other.

_“Your selfishness killed me.”_

Maybe it was time, for once in his life, to face the consequences of his decisions.

He reached out toward the tunic Roan gripped at his side and his answer barely clawed its way out of his throat.

“Yes. I’ll go.”

* * *

 

“May I use magic? To light...the...um…” words failed him, in the end.

“You don’t have to ask -” Hawke’s voice was unbearably gentle and Anders snapped in response.

At least where it concerned _her_ , he was never at a loss for words.

“I’m well aware of _that_ ,” even in the darkness, he could see Hawke’s cheeks color - though whether in anger or in embarrassment, he frankly didn’t care. “It might surprise everyone standing here, but I _am_ an Andrastian and I _am_ aware that there are certain customs to be respected in such sacred rituals,” his eyes flickered over to the red-head that Hawke had introduced as “Brother Sebastian” and he had to fight the urge to snarl at him as well. “If there’s no rule against it, I would like to do my...friend…” he hated that his voice wavered dangerously over the word, over the half-truth. “This one last honor.”

Brother Sebastian seemed a bit flummoxed by the request and Anders was amused as the brother’s blue eyes flickered over toward Orsino. If the First Enchanter was surprised by a Chantry layman deferring to _him_ in matters of religious ritual, the elf didn’t show it.

“If you have no objection to it, Brother Vael,” Orsino murmured. “Then neither do I.”

“Uh...well...very well, then,” Sebastian dipped his head in awkward acquiescence.

“Let’s step away, then,” Hawke commanded softly.

“But -” the good Brother started to protest and the Templar held up her fist to cut him off.

“There is no harm to be done in letting Anders pay his respects in what privacy we can afford him. I stood watch over my brothers and sister, without anyone hovering anxiously over my shoulder.”

“But, he’s-!” Sebastian apparently didn’t take “back off” very well.

“What? A mage?” Hawke surprised Anders with her sudden defense of him. “If you’re afraid of him trying to run, Brother Sebastian, I’d like to assure you that while Anders may be many things, _suicidal_ is not one of them,” the Templar’s tone turned dry. “Where is he going to go?” she waved a hand around the dark courtyard, as if to make her point. “There’s only one exit.”

“There’s no wall…” Sebastian tilted his head toward the far end of the courtyard, where waves could be heard crashing against the high cliffs the Chantry was built upon.

Roan actually _chuckled_.

“If ya’ think a man in his condition is gonna’ throw himself willingly into a body o’ _salt water_ , then ya’ clearly underestimate the pain left behind by a whip.”

“It probably helps that he’s very clearly never _known_ what that’s like,” Anders’ patience for the inane back-and-forth was non-existent and he was ready to just _get on with it_.

That, coupled with his pain and the distinct sense that he had over-exerted himself in coming to the Chantry, had left him with next to nothing in the way of verbal self-control. Neither of the Templars said anything for several long seconds, Orsino sighed heavily from behind them all, and Brother Sebastian sputtered briefly with incoherent indignation.

“All right, that’s it,” Hawke’s crisp tone of command rang across the courtyard and made them all startle slightly; she began to quite literally _shoo_ the three other men away from Anders. “Let’s show some damn respect.”

“But…!” Sebastian lowered his voice to what he apparently thought was a whisper, as he, Roan, Orsino, and Hawke, began to walk back toward the bright light of the Chantry’s windows and courtyard door. “He _killed_ your brothers and sister!”

“Sebastian, if I held a grudge against every mage that killed a Templar, I’d turn into fucking Meredith.”

“ _Hawke_! That’s your _commanding officer_ -”

“Don’t get all pissy, _Brother_ ,” Anders couldn’t help an amused snort as Hawke cut the man off yet again. “You’re right. She _is_ my commanding officer. Which means she _isn’t_ yours. My point being, _you_ have no idea what a spiteful bitch she is and she’s truly the _last_ authority figure I’d ever want to emulate.”

“The First Enchanter -!”

“Can fucking speak up for himself if I’ve offended him - ”

“ _Language_ , Knight-Lieutenant! This is a house of the Maker!”

“ _Finally_ something you’re qualified to discuss...”

The bickering faded - partly due to the surprising amount of distance Hawke was putting between Anders and her little group, and partly because the mage had decided to just block them all out. He took a deep breath to steady himself and took a step toward the unlit pyre before him. Anders didn’t want to...but the realizations of his dream earlier still haunted him, still taunted him. He squared his shoulders (wincing briefly at the way that pulled at his wounds) and forced himself to really _look_ at the pale face resting so serenely at the top of the stacked wood.

The pyre was almost as tall as he was, so he could only really see Karl’s profile. It was one, however, that he had studied a thousand times before and while it had been almost a decade since he’d had the chance, Anders still remembered every wrinkle and crease. There were new lines now, of course - even the repose of death couldn’t smooth those away. But, Karl had remained a handsome man, at least in the eyes of the man who still tried to deny that he had _loved_ him.

Anders’ right hand rose and he hesitated for just a breath, before he closed the distance between his fingertips and Karl’s cheek. Tears welled in the healer’s eyes as he felt the cold skin beneath his own warm fingertips. His fingers curled in on themselves and Anders brushed his knuckles lightly down the curve of Karl’s bearded jaw.

Karl’s face had been as broad as Anders’ was narrow - they had been opposites in so many different ways. Even at his most fit, Anders had been best described as “lean”, built for speed; Karl had been more burly, built for endurance. Anders was the hothead of the two, Karl quieter and more circumspect. What brought their differences into harmony was that they both shared the same _values_. Karl was every bit the revolutionary as Anders - in truth, the older mage was even more so, because he was able to push himself forward on the merit of his own convictions. Anders, on the other hand, was all heated words and sheer stubbornness, and had always lacked the confidence in his ability to make a difference. Anders always got in trouble, but Karl always got things _done_. As their relationship had developed and matured, the two of them found a way to make that dynamic work - Anders pulled all the Templar and senior mage attention to himself, while Karl got down to business in the background.

It was what Karl wanted them to do here, in Kirkwall. He would stay inside the Gallows and slowly increase the intensity of his efforts, while the Templars’ attentions were gradually pulled into the city by whatever shenanigans Anders could think up. At his best, Anders had the remarkable ability of either drawing cooperative groups of people to him, or being drawn himself into groups that were willing to work with him. He’d been that way as a boy, long before magic changed the landscape of his life and it was one of the reasons he’d managed to ever be even marginally successful in his many escapes from the Ferelden Circle. He had a way with people (though, admittedly, he’d noticed that particular gift had been significantly stunted with the advent of Justice) and Karl had wanted to put that to work for the good of the Gallows and of Kirwall.

But...Anders had let _his_ wants, desires, and needs get ahead of the greater good. He hadn’t cared about revolution when he’d gone to meet Karl. He just wanted to see his old friend and lover once again, had just wanted to hold him and be held in return. He hadn’t wanted to wait to see Karl again, hadn’t wanted to bear the thought of being in the same city together and still as far apart as they had been when he’d been in Ferelden. He’d wanted instant gratification...and it had killed the man he loved.

Worse than that… His selfishness had forced Karl into the horror Tranquility. _Then_ , and only then, had it killed him.

 _He_ had killed him.

Anders clenched his hand into a fist and let it drop to his side. He could barely see through the tears that streamed down into the stubble that was starting to grow into an honest to goodness _beard_. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his bottom lip to keep the sobs of anguish from slipping out - the Templars, the First Enchanter, and Brother Sebastian weren’t breathing down his neck, but in the quiet of the courtyard, he knew that if he made a sound, they would hear it.

 _It’s time_ , a small voice said softly inside of him - not Justice, not Karl, just that part of himself that was weary, and sad, and heartbroken.

Anders lifted his hand - the same one that had stroked Karl’s face one last time - and held his palm up toward the night sky, toward the elements, and the energy that pulsed through all living things. Familiar power rushed through him and settled into the palm of his hand, where it built in intensity until it manifested in a burst of radiant fire. His chest heaved in a silenced sob, as he guided the fire toward the tinder stacked beneath Karl’s body - not in a solid ball of flame, but in gentle tendrils that flowed into the cracks and crevices of the stacked logs until they finally caught.

The heat from the flames forced Anders to take a few hasty steps back. He caught his heel on a bit of broken brick, at which point exhaustion, grief, and pain finally overwhelmed him. The mage allowed his knees to buckle underneath him and he sank to the uneven cobblestones that paved the entire courtyard. He leaned back on his heels and lifted his head toward the burning pyre.

Anders watched as the flames enveloped Karl; he watched as his best friend of fifteen years burned to ash. He watched as the thick black smoke from the pyre boiled up toward the stars and moon above them; he watched until he couldn’t cry another tear, until all that was left of the man he had loved was softly glowing embers. Then he hung his head and allowed himself to remember…

_Karl cupped his jaw and gently urged Anders to look at him. He wiped a thumb tenderly across the top of his right cheek and brushed a tear away; his smile was sad, but resolute._

_“Don’t tell me goodbye, Anders,” he tugged Anders’ face down a bit further, so he could rest their foreheads together._

_“What, then?” Anders managed to choke past all of the emotion stuck in his throat._

_“Just tell me that you’ll see me again.”_

_Anders shook his head vigorously as fresh tears began to fall._

_“You know I can’t promise that. Not with the Templars and all the dangers -”_

_“Shh,” Karl kissed him gently, briefly, though his lips lingered just above Anders’ as he spoke. “If not in Kirkwall, or the Free Marches, or Ferelden, then after. If nothing else, we’ll meet at the Maker’s side. We can promise each other that, yes?”_

_A sob escaped from between Anders’ lips, but he nodded all the same._

_“At the Maker’s side, then,” he nearly choked on the words in his misery._

_“Oh, Anders,” Karl sighed and Anders knew him well enough to finally hear the tears he was trying to hold back; the older mage wrapped his arms around his friends’ narrower shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug that lingered until Anders’ body finally relaxed against his. “Do you remember when we first met?”_

_“Yes,” Anders’ voice was muffled in Karl’s hair, as he held to his friend like a drowning man. “One of the apprentices tripped me on the stairs and I fell the last three steps. You helped me up.”_

_“There will be others to help you up when you fall, I promise,” Anders could practically feel sincerity and earnestness roll off of Karl, and the older mage held him so close, it seemed he was trying to force that conviction into him. “The Maker will always send you someone when you least expect them, and when you need them most…”_

Armor clanked beside him and Anders finally lifted his head. He looked first at Hawke’s bright blue eyes - she had taken off her helmet and had tucked it beneath her left arm. Then he looked at the hand she held out to him.

_“And even if they’re the last person you’d ever want the Maker to send your way...always take their hand, Anders. Always.”_

Another hand appeared to his left, this one attached to Roan, who had put his helmet back _on_. Anders closed his burning, itchy, tear-worn eyes and exhaled heavily.

Then, with the memory of Karl’s last loving words to him, he took a hold of those two hands, and let the Templars help him up.


	11. The Aftermath: 5 - Hawke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! I made it!!
> 
> Ya'll...I've had this chapter hanging out in my Google Docs, mostly finished, for an entire month now. As of TODAY, I finally had the time to finish it up - August has been absolutely bonkers. Between a giant demographic report I had to write, finishing up at one job and starting another, and traveling out of town, I've hardly had time to myself this month, much less time to write.
> 
> Thanks to all of you for being patient with me. I feel sort of "meh" about this chapter - it's kind of a "bridge" chapter and I always hate those, LOL. Let me know how you think this worked out. I feel like I tried to do too much in one chapter, but with me alternating between Hawke and Anders every other chapter, I guess that's the nature of the beast if I don't want to drag things out by three or four extra chapters...

_“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”_

**Jane Austen,** _**Northanger Abbey** _

* * *

 

"Thank you."

Anders’ voice was so low, Hawke almost thought she’d imagined the words. She paused, startled, with her arms around his torso, the clean roll of bandages in one hand and her other flattened lightly against the center of his chest. The sound of his voice had stopped her in the middle of smoothing a swath of bandage over his pectorals as she pulled the white cloth taut around the curve of his ribs, just underneath his left arm. She blinked like a light-blinded owl at the back of his head, her lips parted in an expression of surprise.

“Ah…” words had left her and the best she could do was a soft exhalation of air against the back of his neck.

Her hands began to move before her tongue did. She finished pulling the roll around to his back and her left hand moved behind him as well; deft fingers transferred the bandages from one hand to the other, as she began pulling the cloth taut around the curve of his opposite side. Hawke considered the raised welts and the ragged edges of broken skin that shaped the landscape of his back. Her hands paused behind him, as she remembered the feel of the whip in her hand, as she recalled the dull, meaty sound of boiled leather cutting flesh. She thought of her squad mates - dead, their bodies now ash and dust - and she realized that she was still angry at the mage who was so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body against her own arms. The young Templar regretted the wounds she had gauged into Anders’ back...but as her emotions presently stood, she would take the whip to him again if circumstances dictated it.

“Don’t thank me,” she whispered back, her voice low and husky, the intonation of her words sharpened by her anger, her regret, her frustration, and her grief.

His broad shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. Hawke’s eyes followed the movement of his body and she couldn’t help noticing the freckles that highlighted the curve of his left bicep. She tried to think of something more, something _else_ to say, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. Flummoxed, she tried to turn her focus back to the task at hand, of bandaging his healing back. The exertion to and from the Chantry had reopened some of the long, narrow wounds that had just started to knit back together; she’d been extra careful in washing him and smoothing elfroot salve across his broken skin. Her concentration had been so complete for almost forty minutes and she tried her best to return to the relative safety and simplicity of that headspace.

“I was...wondering,” his voice deepened, Hawke noted, when he spoke in whispers and so help her, the timbre and pitch of it reminded her of how he’d spoken during the Claiming. “If...if I might have some privacy tonight?”

Her lips twisted in a wry expression that only the generous could call a smile.

“Kicking me out of my own bed, Mage? Hell of a night to do so, don’t you think?”

“Well, I can’t very well leave,” his voice rose back to its normal tenor, the tone of it peevish to say the least; he twisted his neck and one amber eye gazed accusingly at her. “And I’m so sorry that my grief inconveniences you.”

Hawke met his eye and shook her head with a heavy sigh of her own.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Anders,” she kept her voice low and even, as she would if trying to calm a spooked horse. “I was just trying to…” she faltered, suddenly uncertain of what she was trying to get across, uncertain herself of what she’d meant by her flippant choice of words.

Hawke sighed again and scowled at the roll of bandages as she passed it from one hand to another for one final pass around his chest. Would there ever come a day when a simple exchange of words between them didn’t resemble a field of buried Qunari explosives?

“I don’t know what I was trying to do, or say,” she finally admitted.

 _Guess you could say I’m uncomfortable myself right now_ , the young Templar admitted silently to herself. _All I wanted was to change your dressing and leave you to yourself for the night, Andraste’s honor._

She decided that maybe it would help smooth things over if she admitted her original intent.

“To be honest, I was kind of thinking a little space between us for a few nights might be...appropriate, given the circumstances.”

The words felt awkward and her tone sounded stilted to her ears. But, it made Anders turn his head back toward the door and she didn’t have to keep squirming beneath the judgment of his gaze.

“You would...let me stay here?” his question was cautious - and deliberate.

Hawke didn’t miss his attempt to gather information, to ascertain her intentions toward him.

“Of course,” she nodded resolutely at his back, as she finally secured the bandages. “I’m not sending you back to the Mages’ Quarters and I’m certainly _never_ sending you to someone else’s room. You’re safe _here_ , Anders.”

“Where will you go, then?” he asked, as she began to scoot backwards behind him, toward the opposite edge of the bed.

“The Hanged Man, I suppose,” Hawke slid off of the bed and onto her feet. “It’s simple enough to get a room there for a few days.”

“‘A few days’?” Anders repeated cautiously as she rounded the corner of the bed to help him lay down.

Hawke stopped in front of him and the two considered each other for a long moment. The mages’ eyes were still red and puffy from crying; she had no doubt that her own face bore the signs of mourning. Anders also looked as tired as she felt - it had been a long day, and even longer evening, for them both.

“You tell me when you’re okay with sleeping next to me again,” she stepped toward him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“That might be...a long time from now,” Anders looked down at her hand and then up at her eyes; his expression was solemn and achingly honest.

“We have to come to terms with each other eventually,” Hawke was insistent, but gentle.

“What do you intend for me, Templar?” his voice was soft, his eyes intent on hers.

“What do you mean?”

He thought about that for a minute and Hawke watched the muscles in his cheeks tighten and loosen in rapid succession. He was nervous, but resolute.

“When do you intend to leash my magic?”

“I don’t,” she shook her head.

“You’ll regret that.”

“I already have plenty of regrets,” Hawke’s eyes dropped from his, to the thick band of metal around his throat.

“What’s one more then?” he lifted his chin defiantly and echoed what she was already thinking to herself.

“I suppose so,” she admitted.

Anders seemed to be thinking that over, as nothing more was said between them as Hawke helped him to settle down onto the bed on his stomach. Hawke stood over him for a few seconds longer and struggled with what to say in parting.

“I’ll be back in the mornings and in the evenings to change your dressing,” she finally settled on the practical. “I’ll ask Roan to have Senior Enchanter Amaya check in on you periodically throughout the day, and make sure you get your meals, things like that,” she pulled at a leather thong around her neck and pulled out a key she had tucked underneath her breastplate and shirt. “Here’s the key to the room. You can lock it from the inside. Don’t open it for anyone except Amaya, Roan, and myself.”

Anders propped himself up on his elbows and twisted his neck to look up at her. He watched silently as she showed him the key and as she then set it down on top of a book on the small bedside table. And that was...that. She lingered awkwardly for a second or two, but when Anders just looked away and lowered himself back down against the pillow, she finally turned toward the door. Once the heavy wood was closed behind her, she paused and leaned her back against it. The Templar lifted her head and turned her gaze toward the dark ceiling above her, as she silently beseeched the Maker for…

Well, for what, she didn’t know. Strength? Patience? Forgiveness? She closed her eyes and pushed a breath of frustration out from between her teeth. Andraste help her, she simply didn’t know what to feel around Anders...and as a result, she didn’t know how to act around him, and she didn’t know what to say to him.

The lock tumbled and clicked beneath her hand and her eyes blinked open in surprise. There hadn’t been enough time for Anders - wounded and in pain as he was - to get out of bed and over to the door. Which meant...he’d used magic to lock the door behind him. In spite of herself, Hawke smiled.

 _No wonder he didn’t say anything,_ she shook her head with a soft snort of amusement. _Why give a mage a key?_

Except...that meant she was locked out of her own room. The tentative smile around the corners of her lips slipped away and she pushed herself off of the door. The young woman turned and considered it solemnly for several long seconds.

The door might as well have been a metaphor for the mage on the other side - closed, hard, unyielding. She lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips briefly across the iron hinges and bands that held the thick wooden slats together. The cool feel of the metal in particular made her scowl, as she thought of the Claiming collar she had bound to an unwilling body.

He had every reason to shut her out…

And in the wake of her squad’s funeral pyres, she had every reason to let him.

* * *

 

“...You think I’ve been sitting here for twenty-five years waiting for Leandra to slink back?”

Hawke opened the door to an unexpected, and heated, discussion. She paused in the doorway, her eyes blinking as she tried to adjust from the bright summer sunshine outside and the darker gloom of her uncle’s Lowtown hovel. Whatever had caused Gamlen’s heated outburst was hushed as everyone turned to stare at her.

“Uh...is this a bad time?” her question was hesitant as her eyes flickered from Bethany, to Carver, to their mother, to Gamlen, and then back to Bethany.

“Depends on who you ask, I’m sure,” Carver was the one to answer; he crossed his arms over his chest and directed a scowl toward their uncle. “Uncle was _just_ explaining to us why he doesn’t have Grandfather’s will.”

“‘Grandfather’s will’?” Hawke turned the statement into a question as she turned toward Gamlen.

“Aren’t you supposed to be out hunting apostates, or something?” Gamlen, ever defensive, snapped at her.

“Well, in that case, she _does_ have business here,” Carver quipped; he was in his oldest sister’s reach, however, and Hawke backhanded him across his arm out of sheer reflex. “Ow!” he pouted and rubbed the spot she had slapped with the back of her gauntlet. “Mind your armor, sister.”

Hawke had been given to the Order in exchange for her father’s debt to Ser Carver, but unlike mages, Templars could stay in contact with their family if all parties so chose.  She had grown up with letters and family visits; not to mention, the family had moved to Lothering to be near her, when she had been Knighted and assigned to her first Chantry. Hawke was used to the contentious relationship between Carver and Bethany - hell, to the contentious relationship Carver had with _everyone_ in the family - and both reprimanding and ignoring her youngest sibling now came as second nature. She didn’t even spare him a glance as he complained; she focused all of her attention on her uncle, who practically squirmed beneath her steely-eyed regard.

“It’s Second Day, Uncle,” her voice was calm and level, but there was a hint of iron beneath it that warned Gamlen not to bullshit her. “Which means it’s my rest day and I _always_ come by to spend the day with my family. It sounds like you’ve all been having a very serious conversation and it’s barely past the first bells of the day,” she raised her eyebrows in meaningful curiosity. “So, I ask again - what about Grandfather’s will?”

Gamlen’s jaw tightened in a way that told Hawke that he was going to dig his proverbial heels in and refuse to answer her. Thankfully, she had a much better relationship with her mother and sister - tragedy had brought the three women together in a way that, unfortunately, nothing else ever could have.

“Gamlen claims that Mother and Father left nothing to me when they died,” Leandra answered on behalf of her brother.

She turned toward her eldest, her expression earnest. Hawke met her mother’s eyes and listened respectfully as Leandra explained the situation that she had so unwittingly walked in on.

“I refuse to believe this,” Leandra straightened her back defiantly and threw her younger brother a glance that was all too similar to “the Look” Hawke had perfected long ago on Carver. “I am the eldest! And yes, your grandparents were angry when I left Kirkwall with your father,” her gaze turned beseechingly toward her three children. “But, I refuse to believe that they were so angry that they cut me out of the will entirely - that they left _nothing_ for their grandchildren.”

“Mother asked Uncle if he would show her Grandfather’s will,” Bethany spoke up quietly and continued the story when Leandra’s eyes filled with frustrated tears. “He says he doesn’t have it, that it’s in the vault in the estate.”

Carver, never one to allow himself to be outside of conversation for long, piped up. His contribution was rather pithy.

“Which he _sold_.”

“Sold!” Leandra threw her hands up in a mixture of frustration and resignation. “Our _home_! That estate has been in the Amell family since the Fourth Blight!”

This declaration appeared to undo the last of Leandra’s composure. She turned abruptly around and fled into the adjourning bedroom. The door slammed behind her and even though a ringing silence fell over the house, Hawke and her siblings knew that their mother was crying inconsolably. This certain knowledge led the eldest to level Gamlen with an accusatory glare.

“Proud of yourself, Uncle?”

“Watch it, _girl_ ,” he snarled back.

Hawke’s temper was stretched as thin as it had ever been. She had wept over her squad’s funeral pyres, she had watched guiltily over Anders as he had done the same beside Thekla’s, she had spent a largely sleepless night in a rented room at the Hanged Man, and she had just come from yet another uncomfortable hour with Anders as she cleaned and dressed his back. Grief, guilt, confusion, and anger had gnawed at her during the entire journey from the Gallows to Lowtown. The end result for current circumstances, was that she was absolutely _not_ in any mood to suffer her uncle’s patronizing ways.

“Mind your words,” she took a threatening step toward Gamlen.

She lifted her hand to wave a finger in his face, but decided at the last minute that she didn’t feel like provoking him any further than words would. She crossed her arms over her chest and settled for scowling at him.

“You might be the one to provide a roof over my family’s heads, but _I’m_ the reason even _you_ can eat. A ‘girl’ wouldn’t be capable of such responsibility and it would serve you well to remember that.”

“An’ he _drinks_ most of his allowance,” Carver added helpfully.

Gamlen turned on him with a snarl, fist raised, but Hawke swiftly insert herself between the two of them.

“I would think carefully about that, Uncle,” she kept her arms crossed, but she’d been a Templar long enough to know how to make her face reflect her capacity for violence.

Gamlen stopped and the two engaged in a heated staring match for several long seconds. Finally, though, the older man turned away from her and stormed out of the front door. Hawke was fairly certain she heard him muttering something along the lines of “ _fucking Chantry brat_ ” as he slammed the door behind him, but she decided that it wasn’t worth going after him to demand that he say such a thing to her face. She uncrossed her arms with a sigh and turned toward her twin siblings.

“That went well,” she ran a hand through her unbound hair; she eyed Carver carefully as she asked, “Does he do that often? Threaten you like that, I mean?”

“Yes,” her brother shrugged with forced nonchalance. “But, he’s too much of a coward to follow through.”

“I’m not sure that makes it any better,” Hawke moved over to one of the room’s two chairs and promptly sprawled into it. “You three need to get out of this place.”

“I’m sure we can manage it eventually, with what you bring in as a Knight. Carver and I can keep working for Athenril, if need be,” Bethany said hopefully; her twin snorted contemptuously.

“Speak for yourself, Beth,” he shook his head and leaned back against the wooden wall next to the door their uncle had just barreled through. “Mother had the right of it. We’ve been in servitude for a year, and I for one am _sick_ of it. We’ve paid our debt to that knife-ear. I’m ready for a different line of work.”

“Carver!” Hawke turned to him sharply. “If you want to be a racist bastard, I can’t stop you. But, you’ll kindly keep that talk to yourself in front of me.”

Bethany sighed and Carver glared.

“He only talks that way around _you,_  Marion. It’s just to get a rise.”

“It’s still ignorant swill,” Hawke growled, her eyes hard. “I have to put up with that bullshit in the Circle. I won’t tolerate it in my own home.”

“This is hardly your ‘home’,” Carver sneered.

“This is hardly home for _any_ of us,” Bethany jumped in before Hawke could retaliate.

 _Ever the peace-maker, aren’t you, Beth?_ Hawke thought as she glanced over at her sister.

Bethany had a point, though, and both Carver and Hawke knew it. The two glared at each other one last time, but in that angry graze they both silently agreed to drop the subject. _For Bethany’s sake_ , the two seemed to say to each other. While Hawke and Carver butted heads without pause, the two of them adored their sole mage sister. If Bethany wanted peace, then she’d get at least the semblance of it, even if the youngest and the eldest had to swallow their tongues.

“We _should_ have a home,” Hawke turned the conversation back toward the very issue she’d walked into earlier; it seemed a safer topic, all things considered, and she was still curious about what had brought the discussion on.

“Mother certainly seems to think so,” Carver reluctantly followed his sister’s lead.

“You said Gamlen _sold_ it?” Hawke lifted a curious eyebrow at her brother; he nodded. “To who?”

To Carver’s credit, his lips twisted in disgust as he answered. He could be an absolute _dick_ , but he at least drew a line _somewhere_.

“Slavers.”

Hawke sputtered incredulously.

“ _What_?”

“Oh, yes,” Carver’s face darkened angrily. “That’s the family legacy now. Best stocked cellar in Kirkwall, _and_ it’s a slave highway to and from the undercity.”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Hawke surged to her feet, her fists clenched. “That _can’t_ be our legacy.”

“Carver has a key to the estate,” Bethany offered; Hawke turned to him, both eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Mother gave it to me in hopes of stirring something up,” he shrugged, his expression suddenly guarded as he glanced from one sister to the other.

“And you haven’t done anything with it?” Hawke demanded.

Carver looked a bit sheepish and turned his gaze to some point beyond Hawke’s left shoulder as he reluctantly admitted -

“Beth...and I...agreed it might be best to wait until you knew what was going on, before we did...something.”

“I think we should try to get the estate back,” Bethany was visibly excited by the idea, though her more world-weary sister had her reservations about fighting their way through much of anything. “Getting Grandfather’s will for Mother gives us all the reason in the world to do so!”

“Gamlen’s got some points, though,” Carver pushed back, though not as vehemently as he would have if it were Hawke making such bold suggestions. “Mother _did_ give up her status and rights as the eldest when she ran away with Father. Should we really pick a fight with slavers when we don’t have any firm proof that what Gamlen’s saying about the will is true? That our grandparents didn’t leave anything behind for Mother?”

“No way to find out otherwise,” Hawke shrugged after a moment of careful consideration. “Plus...Mother’s given everything she’s had to provide for us since Father died. It hasn’t been easy for her since his passing, and having to leave Lothering behind just about broke her. The least we can do is try to give her what _she_ needs, now that we have a possible opportunity to do so.”

“Is it fair to say that Mother ‘ _needs’_ the Amell estate back, though?” Carver stubbornly shook his head.

“She needs stability,” Bethany countered softly. “She needs a life away from Gamlen. She needs dignity. I think that getting the estate back for her can give her that. At the very least, getting the will back should give her peace of mind, and she _definitely_ needs that.”

“Fair points,” Carver conceded after a long pause. “But, say the three of us are, by some Maker’s miracle, able to kick the slavers out. We don’t have the status to actually _live_ there. Titles only get you so far - you need _money_ to claim a place in Hightown.”

“Baby steps, Carver,” Hawke reached up and rubbed the bridge of her nose with a sigh. “We’ve got to start somewhere, even if it doesn’t solve every problem facing us right away.”

“Hold on a minute,” Bethany’s eyes lit up and she turned toward her twin with a conspiratorial look on her face. “There’s the expedition!”

“What expedition?” Hawke frowned slightly - this was the first _she’d_ heard of such a thing.

“There’s been word circling through the city,” Carver sighed, as if he were reluctant to let his oldest sister in on the deal. “A dwarf merchant named Bartrand is planning an expedition to the Deep Roads beneath Kirkwall.”

“A lot of coin could be made in something like that,” Hawke hooked her thumbs in the simple leather belt she had wrapped around her waist.

“Exactly!” Bethany was practically bursting with excitement. “Carver and I went to talk to Bartrand about it yesterday. We didn’t get very far in convincing him to take us on, but then our dear brother had his coin purse almost stolen and Bartrand’s brother happens to be a quick aim,” her eyes danced mischievously at her twin; Carver sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Before you ask, Marion, let me fill in the details,” the young man tilted his head and squinted thoughtfully at his older sister. “We offered our services to Bartrand, as guards for the expedition. He turned us down. We left. And yes, as Bethany says, I got my coin purse lifted by a pick-pocket,” his lips turned down in a sour frown. “But, Bartrand’s brother was watching, put an arrow through the thief’s shoulder and got my coin back to me. Ended up having a conversation with him in which he convinced us to earn some coin and offer ourselves as _partners_ to Bartrand once we got enough.”

“Partners?” Hawke frowned, not quite understanding.

“Yeah,” Carver continued in the tone of someone who thought his sister should just automatically know what he was talking about. “Bartrand’s apparently as stubborn as any dwarf and didn’t want to take on hirelings he didn’t know. Varric, his younger brother, is apparently a lot more practical about things - told us that Bartrand was struggling to fund the expedition on his own, but if we could scrounge up fifty sovereigns, he’d back us up if we offered them to Bartrand in exchange for a cut in the profits.”

“That’s...intriguing,” Hawke rubbed her jaw thoughtfully; after a moment, she frowned. “And unexpected. A little convenient, don’t you think?”

“Not so much,” Bethany’s excitement had dimmed a bit, her expression turning sober. “Apparently, Carver and I have made a name for ourselves in the last year. As you know, the Carta’s been squeezing out all of their smuggling competition in the city - except for Athenril’s operation, of course.”

“Varric credits that to us,” there was a hint of pride in Carver’s voice that he couldn’t quite hide.

“He’s not wrong,” Hawke admitted. “I’ve heard a few things myself around the city, as a hunter. You two _have_ made names for yourselves.”

“Well, as you’ve cautioned us many a time before, that reputation has come with a price,” Bethany sighed. “Varric also claims that the Order has been...asking questions.”

“What?” Hawke asked sharply, her heart suddenly jumping into her throat.

“I’m going to guess you didn’t know anything about it, because you’re not on permanent station in the Gallows, and you canvass different parts of town than we usually frequent,” Bethany gave her sister an apologetic look. “But, yes. Carver did some digging and there _have_ been some rumors going around about a, um, female Ferelden apostate working with Athenril’s smugglers.”

“Ugh,” Hawke groaned as she scrubbed her hands over her face. “I suppose it was only a matter of time, after all,” she admitted reluctantly, her heart sinking to the soles of her soft leather boots.

“You can’t protect us forever,” Bethany agreed gently; she reached out and put a comforting hand on her sister’s bare bicep. “It’s unfair of us to expect that of you.”

“Even though that’s precisely why Father gave you up to the Order,” Carver was never far behind with his negativity; the two sister’s soundly ignored him.

“We need to take care of ourselves, too. If we can get on this expedition and if it’s as successful as Varric claims it can be, then we’ll have enough wealth to keep us out of the Order’s reach.”

“You hope,” Hawke shook her head, unconvinced. “Knight-Commander Meredith gets stricter and harsher by the day. Things are worsening between the Templars and the mages - and that’s just _within_ the Circle. Apostates are…” she winced, her thoughts traveling unwillingly to Anders. “Getting the raw end of the deal, especially as this Claiming Rite picks up popularity.”

Bethany shuddered at the very mention of the Rite and Hawke had to turn her face away from her sister before her expression indicted her.

A week ago, she was a normal Templar, going about her usual business in the city. Now, she was a Templar who had crossed a line that should have never been drawn in the first place - she was bound to an apostate she had Claimed. Her gaze slid guiltily over toward Bethany and she suppressed a grimace. Her sister was sure to find out eventually, and she would _not_ be pleased.

 _She’ll be furious,_ Hawke mused. _As she rightly should._

Bethany had, in Carver’s colorful way with words, “lost her shit” when news of the Rite had reached their ears in Lothering. In fact, it was Hawke herself who had told her siblings and mother about it. The Chantry Templars had been briefed about it well in advance of any ordinary civilians and Hawke had done her duty by relaying the warning of it immediately to her family. The look of horror on Bethany’s face had haunted Hawke for many long nights afterwards.

“Still, we need to try,” Carver surprised both of them and when the two women turned their attention to him, he flushed slightly beneath their sudden scrutiny. “Look here,” he snapped, defensive. “I have no desire to see Bethany caught and tossed into the Gallows. I _especially_ have no desire to have her _raped_ by some over-ambitious Templar,” it was his turn to shudder and Hawke was strangely pleased to realize that her brother, as prickly as he was, had a strong sense of right and wrong where it counted. “And Varric made a fair point. At the very least, a few weeks out of the city could do us some good.”

“Out of sight and out of mind,” Bethany murmured and her twin nodded grimly.

“Well, you two sound like you know what you’re doing,” Hawke threw up her hands. “I’m not going to stop you. So, I suppose that one of the benefits of this ‘expedition’ is getting enough coin together to buy the estate back?” she neatly steered the conversation back to its original track.

“I suppose so, yeah,” Carver reached underneath his tunic and leather breastplate, and pulled out a large key he had hung around his neck on a bit of thick red string.

He offered it to Hawke, who took it with a puzzled tilt of her head.

“Might as well get it cleared out before we try to get those fifty sovereigns together,” his lips twisted up in a rare, if wry, smile. “Care to help us, Ser Knight?”

Hawke snorted and reached out to cuff her brother on his shoulder, but it was in good humor.

“Sure, why not. S’not like I had anything else planned for today.”

“There might be more than Grandfather’s will there, too,” Bethany offered hopefully. “Who knows? There might be some coin in it for us.”

“If we rifle it from dead mens’ pockets,” Carver suggested almost cheerfully. “Though, maybe the slavers are stupid enough to keep their ill-gotten gains stashed in the cellars, too.”

“I have to admit, using blood money like that doesn’t sit well with me,” Hawke shook her head.

“What would you have us do with it, then, if we find any?” Carver’s smile faded as he peered mutinously over at her.

“There’s a shop I know here in Lowtown,” Hawke replied calmly. “The owner keeps a coffer there for donations, to help other refugees who are new to Kirkwall. If the slavers have any money, I suggest we hand it over to a nobler cause, rather than keep it to ourselves,” she raised a hand to cut off her siblings’ protests - even Bethany seemed a little reluctant to go along with Hawke’s idea. “I’ll match whatever we find with savings from my pay. I won’t let us lose any gains we might get from taking back our home. But, I’m also not going to let this family make _any_ sort of profit off of slavery.”

“Fair enough,” Bethany agreed and even Carter grunted his assent.

“So…” Hawke jiggled the heavy key in her hand and glanced over at her brother. “Are we supposed to just waltz up to the front door, or…?” she turned her attention back to the key she was bouncing up and down in her otherwise empty palm. “Is this a key to a specific door?”

“Mother said it was to the cellar,” Carver explained, his eyes on the key as well. “There are apparently tunnels all over under Kirkwall and there’s one that leads from the estate into Darktown.”

“Huh,” Hawke stopped playing with the key and handed it back to Carver. “Well, Mother gave this to you, so lead the way, brother. Let's go case it out for today and make a plan from there.”

* * *

  

Hawke was familiar with Darktown…sort of. Even though she’d given the key back to her brother, neither Bethany nor Carver had ever ventured into Kirkwall’s dank underbelly. She ended up leading their little venture by sheer default - the Templars didn’t go down there often, but she’d been there enough in her year as a hunter to have a general understanding of the main passages through the area.

Usually, Carver got prickly when the three of them were together and Hawke took over the lead. But, it seemed that her handing the key back to him to keep was a significant enough gesture that he just grumbled when his eldest sister got tired of going in circles.

“Darktown’s not even that big of an area,” she huffed at him good-naturedly as she patted his shoulder and stepped past him to show the right way forward.

“Yes, well, I‌’ve never had reason to go down here,”‌ Carver rolled his eyes, but otherwise acquiesced to Hawke’s leadership.

She didn’t ask for the key back and that seemed to help smooth the transition as she guided them through the small, cramped rat’s maze that was Darktown. She hadn’t woken up that morning with any expectation of violence - usually, her rest days were exactly that, days of _rest_. As she had reminded Gamlen earlier, Hawke spent her one-day-a-week away from the Gallows with her family. Her mother, brother, and sister usually just caught her up on the events of their week and she did the same for them; the young Templar had gotten into the habit of treating them to a dinner at the Hanged Man, which was just around the corner from their uncle’s tiny “house”. There, at the tavern, the four of them often indulged in a card game or two, or just sat around to talk and enjoy each other’s company. Hawke and Carver got into at least one semi-heated argument, but most of the time they parted ways on amicable terms.

Carver was an insecure, jealous, and resentful _ass_...but he was still her brother, she was still his sister, and the two tried to keep the long-term peace for Bethany’s and Leandra’s sake. Plus...Leandra was fond of pointing out how alike the two were, which was, in fact, one of the main factors in their contentious relationship. Carver had gotten harder, and sharper, and even a bit meaner since their forced exile to Kirkwall, but in that same time, Hawke had become older, wiser, and even a bit more patient. Eventually, their mother insisted, their relationship would level out.

 _“You’re both so much like Gamlen and me_.  _Or, at least, what we were like before your father whisked me away to Ferelden. You’re the eldest, Marion - do your best to set a good example and to keep close to him. The Blight could have separated the two of you, but it didn’t. Don’t let a wedge settle permanently between the two of you. Don’t become like me and your uncle.”_

Gamlen and Leandra _were_ a cautionary tale - to Hawke, at least. She was old enough to know the stories much better than her siblings, and to put two-and-two together much more easily. Their parents had _met_ because Gamlen arranged the meeting; they had courted each other because _Gamlen_ had helped them sneak about; they had left Kirkwall together, with Leandra pregnant already with Marion, because of Gamlen’s joint efforts with Ser Carver. Hawke, Bethany, and Carver, _existed_ because of their uncle’s past relationship with their mother.

While time had clearly changed their dynamic, and while matters were highly strained between them, Gamlen had still done everything in his power to get them into Kirkwall when so many other Ferelden refugees had been forced away. Yes, Gamlen’s gambling and other poor life choices had left them without the Amell estate. But, Leandra and the twins had a place to call home in Lowtown, _not_ Darktown, like so many other unfortunates who had finally managed to strong-arm (or smuggle) their way into the City of Chains.

Leading the little group as she was, Hawke didn’t have an opportunity to study her siblings’ reactions to Darktown. Then again, she really didn’t need to see them to know what was most likely going through their minds: revulsion, dismay, disgust, pity. She knew they were feeling those emotions, because they were the very things _she_ had felt her first time walking through the undercity slums. Hell, she _still_ felt that way, even after a dozen or more patrols through the sewered stench and ramshackle filth that made Darktown the rancid pisshole that it was.

“All right,” Bethany murmured as she stopped her sister with a light touch to her bare shoulder. “We should turn here,” she glanced from the scrap of scribbled instructions, to the flight of rickety wooden stairs to their left. “Mother said that the entrance is at the very far east end of Darktown, beside an old, abandoned warehouse.”

“Let’s hope it’s still abandoned,” Carver growled low as he shifted his feet uncomfortably; he scanned their immediate surrounding with a baleful eye. “And not a base of operations for the damn Carta.”

“Ugh,” Hawke made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “Don’t say their name. You’ll summon the bastards.”

She was only half-joking. In Darktown, it often seemed to her that one just needed to _think_ about the Carta, to then find half a dozen of them materializing out of the thin air in front of them. She’d tangled with the dwarven thugs at _least_ once every time she’d been down here before; at least half of those encounters ended with a wounded Templar or two. Once, the injuries sustained had been so severe that the poor knight had almost bled out before he had been carried back to the safety of the Gallows. Hawke - and everyone in the squad knew that Knight-Lieutenant Branswell had broken the rules by fetching a _mage_ healer to Merrick’s side that night.

Hawke reflected briefly, darkly, that it had been for naught in the long run. Merrick had died just two months later and she’d stood watch over his burning pyre just hours before. Breaking the rules seemed to have served no purpose, after all.

They went down the stairs and up another set, however, without incident. Once they’d reached the top of the last flight, they had an unobstructed view of Darktown’s far eastern end. There wasn’t a dwarf to be seen - though, Hawke knew from painful experience that that didn’t mean much when it came to Carta assassins. Templar senses could only pick up magic, but she tried to feel out the area ahead of them all the same. She stopped abruptly in her tracks when she felt _it_ \- the residual energy of _powerful_ magic. It hadn’t been cast recently - the energy was faint. But, Hawke knew what day’s old magic felt like, and what it felt like at different levels of strength and capability. They were approaching the haunt of an experienced enchanter - one that was familiar with the immediate area and who had been there for a while. There were _layers_ to the energy, each fainter than the one “above” it, but the fact that there were even “levels” to be sensed, told Hawke enough to put her instantly on guard.

“Something the matter, sister?” Carver emerged from his self-appointed place in the back of their little trio.

“Magic,” Hawke took several careful steps toward the source of the energy - it seemed to be radiating softly from a pair of large, closed, wooden doors directly in front of them.

“This the warehouse Mother mentioned, then?” the youngest Hawke sibling eyed the structure’s peeling wooden struts and the unlit lanterns bracketing the doors.

“I suppose so,” Bethany answered slowly as she looked around herself, her eyes darkened by a perplexed frown. “This _is_ the far eastern end of Darktown, yes?” she glanced toward her older sister for confirmation; Hawke nodded, her jaw set grim.

The Templar’s concentration was abruptly broken, however, when a man bumped into her shoulder as he tried to rush past them. His face turned toward her for just a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for Hawke to see the absolute _panic_ that deepened the creases around his mouth, and that made his eyes wide and frantic.

Without even bothering to apologize for running into her, the man rushed toward the doors.

“No, no, no, no…!” cries of disbelief tumbled out of his mouth as he pounded futiley at the door and looked up desperately at the unlit lamps above him.

“Messere!” Hawke took charge of the situation, as was her nature, and stepped up to the man, her hand stretched out toward his shoulder, as if to steady him. “Is something the matter?”

“The healer!” he knocked even harder on the doors and Hawke eyed them warily - the thin wooden slats didn’t look tough enough to withstand much of the man’s insistent, frantic pounding.

“The...healer?” she repeated carefully, in the hopes of prompting more out of him.

“Yes, the healer!” the man finally turned toward her, his expression scared and desperate. “The Grey Warden?” his tone turned hopeful, if for a second. “He...he set up a clinic here about two months ago. A Ferelden refugee, like me, like,” the man’s voice broke and Hawke could finally see the tears shining in his wide eyes. “Like my wife and...and...and my boy!”

A broken sound of grief and terror tore out of his throat and he lunged forward to grab Hawke by the straps of her leather jerkin. It took everything in her not to deck the poor fellow, or to push him away, but she could sense that anything sudden on her end would spook him. And in his current frame of mind, she didn’t want to find out what startling him would make him do.

“He was a mage, an apostate,” defeat threatened to crumple the stranger’s resolve. “Oh, Andraste’s mercy! Have you seen him? The...the Templars…” his voice trailed away and no one present needed him to finish his sentence.

Wherever there was a renegade mage involved, Templars offered no hope. Hawke began to shake her head, began to open her mouth and tell the man who still had a death grip on the front of her clothes that she had no idea who he was talking about, when something he said clicked into place.

 _“The Grey Warden?”..._ _“He was a mage, an apostate.”_

 _Surely_  there weren’t very many Grey Warden apostates in Kirkwall. Apostates, for sure. There was the extremely slim possibility (but a possibility all the same) that another Grey Warden was rattling around the city. But, an apostate who was also a Grey Warden? A _Ferelden_ Grey Warden and mage? There could only reasonably be one...any more in one place and the Maker would have had to have had a hand in it…

“What...what does this healer look like?” she reached up and grasped the man’s wrists - though, whether to anchor him to her, or to gently pry him off of her, was yet to be determined. “Have you seen him before?”

“Yes, yes!” tears had finally begun to fall down the man’s cheeks and he nodded his head so hard that Hawke worried he might do harm to himself. “He’s tall and thin. Pale-skinned chap, sort of reddish-blond hair. I don’t know ‘bout such things, but I’ve heard it said from others that he has the look of the Anders about him.”

 _Anders_.

Hawke had to stifle a shudder at the name, had to fight to keep her own eyes from going wide in shock.

 _What are the fucking odds?_ She marveled as she turned and glanced at the locked doors towering above them both.

“A, uh, healer, you say?” she couldn’t bring herself to look back at the man and instead lifted her gaze toward the lamps that hung even higher than the doors. “What...what is the emergency, messere, that you need _this_ healer?”

“My boy,” the misery in the man’s voice brought Hawke’s searching gaze back to him. “H-he...he’s not gonna make it,” his voice began to rise in pitch as the panic set in even further; he turned his head and jerked his chin toward the doors. “He...he’s the best healer in Kirkwall, they say. An’...he doesn’t charge. Gives his services to us refugees for free.”

Hawke finally pulled the man’s grip off of her, as gently as she could under the circumstances. She held his hands between hers, though, and shook them to get his attention focused back on her. The two looked at each other and she took a deep breath.

“I think I know where this healer is. I’ll go get him,” she lifted her head and let go of the stranger’s hands as she turned toward her brother and sister.

The three of them exchanged a significant glance. Neither Bethany nor Carter would stop her, or question her, though it was clear by the looks on both of their faces that they were completely perplexed by the sudden change of events.

“Help him get his boy here,” she ordered her siblings as she stepped resolutely past them. “I’ll meet you all back here in an hour, exactly.”

She didn’t glance back once as she started to run as fast as she could through the tangled streets of Darktown, for the pulley-lift that would take her back up to Lowtown. Confused or not, Bethany and Carter would do as she told them - they could all sort out the questions later. Hawke’s heart pounded in her throat with each quick rise and heavy fall of her feet.

She had never once stopped to think about the life she might have taken Anders away from, about what responsibilities he might have had. She would not have ever, in a thousand ages, guessed him to be a healer - much less one so magnanimous and generous of heart to operate a _free_ clinic to the poorest of the poor. But, there could not _possibly_ be another Ferelden Grey Warden apostate in all of Kirkwall, much less the Free Marches. She would have never guessed him so powerful, either - the memory of what she’d felt while standing outside those doors would linger with her for a long time. She hadn’t ever felt power like that outside of the Circle…

Except for her father. Malcolm Hawke had been that powerful, and even more so.

 _What have I done, Father_? she asked as she flew as fast as she could through the dusty streets and sun-soaked alleyways of Kirkwall.

A boy’s life was at stake, because of a decision _she_ had made, because of the power she had chosen to wield over a mage who was turning out to be so much more complex than the titles of “monster” or “man” could encompass. Because of her own short-sighted superiority, she could have the blood of an innocent on her hands, could kill a child as surely as if she’d delivered the death blow herself.

_What have I done?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \o/ Another chapter down! Hopefully, the next one will flow a lot better...it's never easy to get back into the groove after a period of absolutely zero productivity.
> 
> Just so you all know, I'm going to do my best to get the next chapter out in the next two weeks, but we might end up looking at three. The next few weeks shouldn't be as intense as the last few, but I do have a few assignments coming up that will take significant chunks of my free time to finish. I also have a new job to adjust to, and the new schedule that comes with it. :-/ Please continue to be patient with me! I have no intention of abandoning this fic, I just might be more slow than either you or I might like between now and the end of September.
> 
> In the meantime, please keep sending lots of love. <3 It helps keep me going, even through the dry spells.
> 
> Especially through the dry spells.


	12. The Aftermath: 6 - Anders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so...it took me another month. And what one helluva month it's been. It's only been this past week where I've started to feel -actually- acclimated to my new position/duties/etc. Most of this chapter was -written- in the past week, as it turns out.
> 
> I'm stuck at home with a cold on an unexpected four-day weekend (well...two and quarter at this point), so I have the best of intentions to write the next chapter and have it posted by Sunday night. We'll see... Send me good vibes, well wishes, and kudos/comments! That...and some heavy doses of cold medicine...should do the trick. ;-)

_“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”_

**― C.S. Lewis,** _**The Four Loves**_

* * *

 

“What in the Maker’s name is going on, Templar?” Anders grumbled into his pillow.

Hawke’s bare hand gripped his bare bicep; the spasm of her fingers against his skin strongly suggested that she wouldn’t hesitate to pull him out from under the blankets if he didn’t comply. He lifted his head reluctantly and peered up at her from beneath a curtain of unruly reddish-blond hair.

“No time for questions,” her words were sharp, clipped.

Anders pushed his hair out of his face and lifted himself up onto his elbows. The look in her eyes was kin to _panic_. The mage’s frown deepened and he gingerly pushed himself up until he was sitting and facing her. Alarm had etched itself into the lines of her otherwise smooth face...and yet, Anders was still cautious in believing the truth of her expressions.

“I’m not going anywhere, until -”

“You’re a healer,” she cut him off with a curt chop of her hand in the air between them.

Anders blinked again - her entire demeanor, sudden appearance, and strange statements were throwing him off balance.

“Well...yes. I am.”

 _A damn good one_ , he added to himself.

“C’mon,” she pulled at his arm. “I need your help.”

His lip curled upward in disdain.

“I’m quite certain that there are other healers -”

“None who run a _free_ clinic for Ferelden refugees in Darktown,” Hawke shook her head impatiently.

Anders was rendered quite speechless for a second or two. He stared at her, nonplussed, until she tugged at his arm hard enough to finally slide him off of the edge of the bed. He grimaced as the tender muscles and fragile new skin of his back stretched, flexed, and shifted in order to get his feet underneath him.

As soon as his bare feet touched the floor, Hawke let go of him and Anders’ mouth gaped open a bit in puzzled astonishment as she moved faster than he’d seen her yet. She was something like a whirlwind, as she gathered up his clothes and all but threw them, one piece at a time, into his hands. She paused only long enough to ask him a question that clearly left her a bit bemused.

“Do you think your back is healed enough for you to get to Darktown?”

“Probably not,” he continued to stand by the side of the bed, his hands now overflowing with  pants, tunic, and coat.

“I’ve been an idiot,” Hawke snapped as she roughly snatched his pants away from him and crouched down to help him step into them.

“I’m not here to fix your mistakes,” Anders’ cheeks flushed at her assistance, but he accepted her help, even as he pushed back verbally.

“My stupidity could cost a boy his life,” her tone was hard, her blue eyes even harder as she stood up and pulled his pants up over his hips in one smooth motion.

Anders sputtered wordlessly as her fingers began pulling the opening of his pants closed, one sharp tug at a lace at a time. The last time a woman had dressed him, he’d been five and the woman in question had been his _mother_.

“Again, I’m not here -” he tried again, his own tone turning waspish; Hawke practically snarled at him as she jerked his laces tight and started tying them together.

“Do you really want to run the risk of your _pride_ joining in on the consequences of my idiocy?”

Her meaning was clear - did he want to run the risk of killing a boy, just because he was too proud to fix a Templar’s mistakes?

Anders still wasn’t sure what she had done to put a child in jeopardy. A part of him really didn’t want to know. But given that she’d brought up his clinic...his chest tightened and his stomach dropped as he pieced two and two together.

She’d taken him away from the clinic. He’d been in so much pain - emotionally and physically - in the last few days, that even _he_ had forgotten his duties. Somehow, Hawke had found out about what he had done before their fateful meeting in the Chantry. Someone needed his help - a refugee who knew about his clinic and had found its doors closed, its healer missing.

“Hold my coat,” it was his turn to shove clothing at her. “I can get my tunic on without help.”

Hawke tossed his coat onto the bed beside him and knelt at his feet again. She whisked his boots out from under the bed and tugged at his left foot until he raised it high enough off of the ground for her to all but shove it into his boot. Anders hissed in pain as he pulled his tunic awkwardly over his head; his movements were slow and tentative and his back already throbbed with the little movement he’d made so far. He didn’t doubt that by the conclusion of their misadventure, most of the wounds on his back would be torn open again. Roan’s salves and Hawke’s meticulous dressings had helped his skin start to stitch back together again - but it hadn’t been enough time for any of the healing to be any further along than fragile scabs.

“Socks,” he grunted as Hawke pulled his right boot on.

“Don’t know where they’ve gone off to,” Hawke’s voice was tight and her fingers flew up his calf as she buckled his boot as fast as she could. “Don’t have time to find them.”

“Gross,” Anders muttered; he hated the feeling of bare feet in leather.

She glanced up at him and for half of a second, there was a faint glimmer of humor in her eyes.

“You don’t wear smalls.”

“Not for lack of desire,” Anders pulled his coat across the bed toward him. “And you caught me on an off day.”

Hawke snorted and for a moment, Anders’ heart hurt. Why couldn’t the two of them just be _normal_? Already, there were glimmers of goodness between them. But, as soon as a silver lining shone, the reality of the Claiming tainted it.

She had taken him away from his life, from his clinic, from his patients. In doing so, she’d unknowingly put the refugees of Darktown in danger - her _own_ people, too. She knelt before him and helped him dress, but that didn’t change the fact that she was setting his own healing back by making him move before his wounds were ready. She could clearly find humor in the worst moments, but that didn’t absolve her of the consequences of her actions. By Claiming him, she had changed the fates of more than just the two of them. She had put innocent lives on the line.

What faint smile had tugged at the edges of Anders’ lips disappeared. He finished dressing in silence and she said nothing more until he was finally put together. Then, without a word herself, she grabbed a hold of his right arm and marched him swiftly out of the room.

“I’m coming willingly,” he hissed to her under his breath as she bustled him down the long, dark corridor.

“Appearances,” she muttered back to him.

There was no one in the hallway, but Anders had lived in a Circle long enough to know that didn’t really matter much. There were _always_ eyes watching...and if they weren’t, then there were _always_ ears listening. Not to mention, they had to look the “part” (whatever that was, he thought wryly), just in case someone opened a door or came around a corner.

After about five minutes of brisk walking, Anders started to truly wonder where in Thedas Hawke was taking him. The only main thoroughfare she took him down was the corridor outside their room. Otherwise, she ducked into dark alcoves that obscured even darker stairs, and she pulled him along corridors that became increasingly danker and dustier. Anders knew that they were going _down_ , into the very bowels of the Gallows itself. They hadn’t crossed the paths of another soul since starting out; it had to be night, then, the mage reasoned to himself.

Hawke pulled him out of his thoughts when she stopped them abruptly in front of a locked door that looked positively _ancient_ and thoroughly forgotten. Anders could feel magic on it - a warding, then.

Without even blinking an eye, Hawke put her left finger against the upper center of the door. She began tracing a pattern over the age-smoothed wood; faint blue light glimmered in the wake of her finger. When she was finished, the Templar leaned so close toward the door that her lips almost touched it. She whispered something Anders couldn’t catch and then blew a controlled puff of breath against the glimmering runes that she had traced. The distinctive sound of a lock tumbled and she pushed the door open without another pause.

Anders tried to say something as she pulled him through the doorway, but all that came out was akin to a highly undignified squeak. She shut the door behind them; another click and shift of hidden gears, and the mage knew that the door was sealed safely behind them.

“That...that was _magic_ ,” he finally found his voice as she fumbled with something in the dark beside him.

“Andraste’s tits,” she swore vehemently as something clattered to the floor at their feet.

She then shoved something between them and Anders reared his head back instinctively. He couldn’t see an inch in front of his face, but he could sense that she had almost smacked him full across the nose.

“Fire, please?” Hawke’s sigh was heavy with frustration.

Anders wanted light as much as she did, so he didn’t say anything at all as he lifted his hand and magically ignited a small ball of fire in the cup of his palm. He then saw that what she’d almost hit him with was a torch and he guided the little ball down over his fingers and onto the soaked rags wound tight over the end of the thick wooden handle in Hawke’s grasp.

“You have magic,” he insisted on an explanation before they took a single step further.

“Society - mages and not alike - conveniently forget that magic is a continuum. I don’t have much, and definitely not enough to _ever_ be considered a mage. But, I can make and break simple wards. Nothing too complex,” she insisted with a curt shake of her head. “But, it comes in handy sometimes, depending on what I come up against. The daily doses of lyrium help.”

“You have mages in your family, then,” Anders didn’t ask - magic rarely occurred spontaneously in family lines.

It was one of the great questions he still yearned to ask his mother. Who, in her line or his father’s, had been a mage before him?

“I do,” her voice pulled him away from where his thoughts threatened to wander and with a blink, he realized that she was looking at him very intently, as if she expected him to ask _her_ …

“Who?” he obliged, though truthfully, he was curious himself.

Something shifted in her gaze. It was so subtle that he almost blamed it on the flickering fire between them. But, then her answer registered and with it, the power she had unexpectedly given him.

“My father.”

The silence was so profound between them for a breath or two, that Anders almost imagined he could hear dust falling.

“I got it from my father.”

Without another word, without any context or explanation, Hawke turned on her heel and started marching down the long, dank corridor. Anders sputtered incoherently for several stunned seconds, but the Templar had taken the light with her and he didn’t fancy being left in the dark in a foreign place.

“Slow down,” he called out to her.

Sharp stabs of pain lanced his back every time he took a step. As much as it galled him to admit, Anders couldn’t move very fast in his present state. Thankfully, Hawke obliged him and even turned to look at him as he hurried over to her side.

“Care to explain yourself?” he demanded as soon as they started off again, this time at a pace far closer to what he could manage without too much pain.

“About?”

He huffed. She was playing coy with him and he wasn’t having it.

“About your father. About having magic, however slight. About being a _Templar_ in spite of all of that!”

Hawke glanced over her shoulder at him and it was only then that he realized that her face wasn’t half-obstructed by a pauldron. She was in ordinary, everyday clothes - simple, practical, and comfortable. He wondered about that, too. There was so much about her _he didn’t know_.

The mage was a little unsettled to realize that he was genuinely _curious_ about her. In spite of himself, and in spite of the ghastly circumstances that had bound them to each other, he actually wanted to know _more_ about Knight-Lieutenant Marion Hawke.

“I promise I’ll explain myself fully in due time,” her eyes were unspeakably blue in the light of the torch between them. “But now’s not the time.”

“It certainly seemed like a good enough time for you to completely rearrange my perceptions of you,” Anders grumbled.

Hawke glanced over at him as they walked and Anders was too perceptive a man to miss the sudden flash of hope in her eyes. He answered it with a disapproving scowl.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

She sighed softly and the two of them walked in silence for a good ten minutes or so. The corridor grew more and more narrow, until Anders found himself walking behind Hawke. Not out of any sense of deference, but because it simply made good sense for the one with the torch , who was familiar with their surroundings, to lead the way. As they went deeper in, the stone walls around them began to glisten in places, as if water was seeping down from some unknown source above them. It was cold, too, and Anders was uncomfortably reminded of the Deep Roads.

“Where in the Maker’s creation _are_ we?” he wondered aloud.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when his Templar guide actually answered him.

“This is an old tunnel that cuts underneath the narrow channel between the Gallows and Kirkwall proper,” Hawke’s explanation left much to be desired.

“This a common passageway for Templars, then?”

“No.”

Anders considered the back of her head with slightly narrowed eyes. There was something about the way she said ‘no’ that made him suspect there was plenty she wasn’t telling him.

“How do you know about it?”

She flashed him an unexpected smile over her shoulder. The expression was wry, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward all the same.

“I think I’ve ‘rearranged’ your ‘perceptions’ of me enough for one night.”

The smile faded, though, and another expression he couldn’t quite catch crossed through her eyes just as she turned her head back around. Anders frowned to himself and silence fell between them once again. Marion Hawke had far too many secrets...and Anders wasn’t sure if he wanted to unravel those secrets, or let them lie.

Knowledge was power, it was said. But, knowledge could also alter one’s perceptions...and Anders wasn’t sure he was quite ready to uncover a deeper side of the Templar who had Claimed him. Intuition told him that knowing Hawke’s secrets would only fall one of two ways - they would either tip him over into total hatred of her, or they would endear her to him.

He wasn’t quite sure just yet which of those two paths was worse…

* * *

 

To Anders’ continuing surprise, the tunnel from the lowest levels of the Gallows lead straight into Darktown. It took them going through another warded door (this one practically imperceptible from the rank, rotten wooden walls around it), but after a short walk through an adjourning Darktown sewer, they emerged just yards away from the clinic’s doors.

The healer felt his footsteps hastening as they drew closer - the pain of his wounds was secondary to the purpose that had brought him all this way across Kirkwall. In fact, he passed Hawke and stepped past the clinic threshold ahead of her.

He was so intent on the young boy laid out on the examination table in the back center of the large room, that Anders didn’t even register that _the doors had been open._  All that mattered was the young life that barely inhabited his newest patient’s body.

“Oh, thank the Maker!” an older man, who had been leaning over the boy, looked up in an anxious mixture of both relief and fear.

“What happened?” Anders forgot about everything - the Templar at his back, the Claiming collar around his neck, the spirit coiled tightly within him.

All of his focus, every bit of his singular attention, was focused on the sobbing mother, grief-stricken father, and comatose son in front of him.

“F-fever,” the mother didn’t even lift her head to look at him; she bent over the boy, his head cradled loving between her two hands.

The child’s chest rose in a labored breath. Something garbled in his throat and Anders felt his eyebrows knit together in concern. That was a “death rattle” - he had only minutes, if even that, to save the boy’s life.

“Did a bad cough accompany this fever?”

Both mother and father nodded.

“Congestion in his lungs?”

They looked at him, a bit puzzled, and Anders quickly clarified.

“Has it been hard for him to breathe?”

“Yes,” the mother finally looked up at him, her eyes overflowing with tears.

“Has there been a rattle, or a wheeze, when he breathes?”

Another nod. Anders pursed his lips and with a gentle “excuse me” as he stepped up to the boy’s side, he nudged the father to switch places with him and to stand next to his wife at their son’s head. Without any further questions, the mage lifted his hands and let them hover over his patient’s chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated…

There was fluid in the child’s lungs. A little bit was concerning enough, but that was all Anders could sense in organs that should have been filled with air. There was fever in him, and infection. The fluid in his lungs was inflamed; his entire chest cavity, in fact, was a dark mass of impending death and disease.

The world around him ceased to exist and all Anders could feel was the Fade, coursing through him and into his outstretched hands. One positive benefit of merging with Justice, was that the healer’s connection beyond the Veil was both powerful and immediate. The Fade, by way of the spirit, existed _within_ him, so there was little need to pull from energies outside of himself, or beyond the boundaries of mortal existence.

Before Justice, Anders would have never attempted such a monumental act of magic. But now, after their union, it was almost second nature to him. He urged the boy’s body to fight along with him, as he systematically manipulated the child’s internal structures at a level that even the best of Thedas’ physiologists, physicians, healers, and scientists couldn’t name. He didn’t draw the disease and inflammation out, so much as he rallied the body’s natural mechanisms for self-healing. So far as Anders knew, there were no names for nor scientific understandings of what he did...he barely understood what he did himself. He just knew that he could give the boy his own strength of will, a bit of his own health and mana, to right all the ways his body had gone wrong.

Something was wrong… The boy’s body was responding to the magic and manipulation, but his life force was still ebbing away. As long as there was a tether between the soul and the body, though, magic could still bring the spirit back. In theory, at least. Anders had never heard of it done, without blood magic.

The point of blood magic, however, was to summon power - that it inevitably came in the form of a demon was usually of little concern to those who gave into the temptation. Anders, however, did not need to spill blood in order to call on a power greater than his own. He had that within him already.

He called for Justice, and the spirit answered. Not with manifestation, but with strength of will. It almost felt like adrenaline when the magic thrumming through his body spiked in its intensity. Anders gritted his jaw with the effort of controlling the force of power that raced down his arms and into his hands. Too much would overstimulate the boy; too much, and the mage could inadvertently sever the very connection he was trying to strengthen.

It was excruciating work and Anders had to switch the focus of his magic from manipulating the boy’s body to gently, slowly, powerfully, coaxing the spirit to return fully to its host. The boy had almost slipped into the Fade and it took every ounce of Anders’ skill, finesse, and his combined power with Justice, to pull the child back.

Finally, though, there was a gasp, a heave, and a sharp inhale of startled breath. Anders’ eyes snapped open and he didn’t need to look at the boy’s face, to know that all the effort and control had been worth it. He had saved a life, and Justice had proven himself useful for more than just death.

 _He_ had proven himself worthy of more than death.

The healer tried to step away from the table, to give the father a chance to take his place at his son’s side, but a wave of bone-deep weariness washed over him. Pain slammed into him, too - he had overexerted himself and he could feel the bandages across his back dampen slowly with blood from a few reopened wounds. Anders wavered on his feet; he reached blindly for the load-bearing beam that was near the examination table and belatedly realized that he’d fall flat on his face before he could reach anything that might steady him.

A firm hand gripped his left forearm and another grabbed ahold of his right shoulder. The boy’s father had briefly postponed the reunion with his son, in order to help the mage that had just done the near-impossible. Anders murmured a thank you for the halting step or two it took to shove his shoulder against the beam and get his feet underneath him.

“Not at all,” the man answered back just as softly, his tone tight with emotion. “Thank _you_ , ser. You saved my boy.”

“He’s not completely out of the woods,” Anders panted and tried his best not to turn his back to the man and cling for dear life against the pole of wood pressingly firmly into the ball of his shoulder. “Take him home. Watch him. If he worsens again, bring him here _immediately_. If he doesn’t, I still want to see him again in a week.”

There was an unnatural pause and Anders could _feel_ the energy in the room, between him and the father, shift. He shook his head in an attempt to gather his wits - he felt like he’d been Smited, he was so drained. He squinted over at the father…

...And saw that the man’s eyes were riveted at his throat.

“C-can you, s-ser?” the father stumbled over his words; confusion, surprise, and a complex host of other unnamed emotions forced the unsteadiness of his voice.

The man’s eyes glanced to his left, past his son who was now sitting up on the table and being hugged by his crying mother. Anders followed the man’s gaze and it lead straight to Hawke, who stood awkwardly by the door, her hands clenched at her side.

Confusion and tension now hung thick in the room. The poor refugee was clearly trying to figure out if Hawke was a Templar...if she was _Anders’_ Templar, the one who had forced the Claiming collar around his neck. She wasn’t in her armor, so it was clearly throwing him off, and Anders didn’t need to look at the man to guess what was going through his mind.

Bringing his son to an apostate Grey Warden was one thing. Bringing his son to an apostate Grey Warden who had been _Claimed_ was another. Was the woman who had rushed to get the mage and bring him back, the Templar who Claimed him? If she wasn’t...would the Templar who _had_ be angry to discover that their forced charge had been brought outside of the Gallows and allowed to do magic without Templar supervision? Would the Templars be after him, then, and his wife and newly-rescued son?

Anders growled low in his throat and decided to take hold of the situation, since Hawke looked like a nug in the torchlight. He didn’t care if she cared - a swell of bitterness rose and with it, the taste of blood at the back of his tongue.

Would he ever be able to look at her, without tasting blood?

“Yes,” his voice was loud in the silence of the mostly-bare clinic.

The man flinched, but his shoulders loosened just a hair. His eyes still darted between Hawke and Anders, but something like hope had returned to his gaze when he directed it at the healer.

“Yes,” Anders stated again, his tone resolute - some would say defiant.

He didn’t dare glance over at Hawke. He wouldn’t give her this minute. Wouldn’t let her steal his power, his freedom, his _life_ ever again. If she wanted to stop him, she’d have to Order him, or Command him, and he didn’t think she would dare do either with an audience.

“I can. Bring your boy back in a week. I’ll be here.”

Tears welled in the man’s eyes, as he nodded and as relief washed over his face.

“Thank you, ser. _Thank you_.”

The little family moved toward the door and Anders finally shifted his position so that he could hold onto the beam. He stifled a groan as he pressed his cheek against the grainy, splintery wood. His head had started to throb and nothing sounded so wonderful in all the world, as a bed. He hadn’t thought he’d ever think longingly of the bed in which he’d lost his freedom, but here he was, wishing desperately that he could be back amid the soft pillows and cool sheets, his back bare and cleaned, his pain eased with elfroot.

A voice that he hadn’t heard before jerked him from the reddish haze of his brief mental meandering. Anders blinked his eyes open, lifted his head, and turned it toward the shocked whisper that practically echoed across the clinic in its condemnation.

“Marion, _what have you done_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Hawke posses no more magic than what she reveals in this chapter. As she herself says, she doesn't have enough to be anywhere close to being considered a mage. However, I think it's a little strange that in the DA world, there's people-with-magic and people-without-magic and no range in between. In my personal opinion, society, life, biology, and experience rarely (if ever) exist on a polarized binary.
> 
> I also had no plans to give Hawke any other sort of magic or mage-like ability, but it sort of just happened as I was writing that scene. Blame it on her?
> 
> I'll be playing with the concept a little bit in chapters to come, but probably only in exploring Anders' backstory (I'm of the opinion that he expressed magical talents well before he was 12, but they were, shall we say, a hell of a lot more subtle than a fireball). If there are others like Hawke, they're not common, and let's just say their "gifts" are one-trick ponies, and often mistaken for just exceptional, but utterly normal, talents. I thought it was kind of appropriate, though, that Hawke has a way with wards...given her future story all...


End file.
